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Thread: BLACK PANTHER (Ryan Coogler 2018)

  1. #1
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    BLACK PANTHER (Ryan Coogler 2018)

    RYAN COOGLER: BLACK PANTHER (2018)


    THE LADIES OF BLACK PANTHER IN FANTASY AFRICAN DRESS

    Black Heroes Matter

    Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman may have been a milestone in celebrating women super heroes, but Ryan Coogler's Black Panther is something more because it celebrates not only black super heroes, and black women, but Africa, Africans, and the African diaspora, and with a singleness of purpose rarely seen in a comic book blockbuster. If it is one: it is better at Afro-centric fantasy than at super hero action. But it does have a black super hero and it is full of attractive black people whose negritude and African roots are celebrated.

    You may ask if it is really desirable for any under represented group to gain admission into some mainstream category, if that category might be better avoided. I sympathize with Fran Lebowitz's point that it's deplorable, almost incomprehensible, that gay people want most of all in the world to be allowed to marry and join the military, marriage and the military being the two most confining institutions going. She has said being gay should be a good excuse not to marry, and being gay in the past was a way of avoiding military service. So shouldn't being black be an excuse not to have to be celebrated as a comic book super hero? But everybody wants to join the party, even if it's a party of boors or bores. A conventional venue, in the event, can be used in creative expedience as a place to say new things. And you have to have skin in the game. As a San Diego Comic-Con slogan said, "Black Heroes Matter."

    This seems, at least, to be a movie Ryan Coogler was born to make. It starts off and ends up in Oakland, California - within a short distance of which, incidentally, I watched this movie with a rapt, sell-out audience - and where Coogler's debut is wholly set. That first feature, Fruitvale Station (2013) formally, one might say ritualistically, stated the young African-American filmmaker's sense of responsibility and purpose. It tells the story of the last day of the life of the 22-year-old Oscar Grant III, on the New Year's Eve a decade ago that ended with his senseless killing by a member of the Bay Area Rapid Transit police. This debut film counts as a cri du coeur of Black Lives Matter, which, as a matter of fact, was founded a fortnight before the movie came out. Coogler's second feature, Creed, again starred the charismatic Michael B. Jordan, this time in a demonstration of their collective ability to breathe new life into a movie franchise, in this case the "Rocky" one, with a black star. Black Panther does that, and more. It is a Marvel Comics movie about a black super hero. It's a black entry into a franchise that hitherto has been white, and an opportunity, however cliched its rituals, to celebrate blackness in a fresh and vivid way.

    Jordan is back again for a third round, not as the lead but as Erik Kilmonger, the evil nemesis of T'Challa/Black Panther, the lead, played by Chadwick Boseman. Boseman was hired for the film reportedly without an audition. Why should you need to audition an actor who had already starred in dazzling succession as, first James Brown (Get on Up), next Jackie Robinson (42), and then Thurgood Marshall (Marshall). When an exceptional black man is needed, whether the Godfather of Soul, the pioneer of integrated big league sports, or the first African American Supreme Court Justice, Boseman is your man. He is talented, versatile, and above all audacious. This time he takes on an air of nobility, and an African accent.

    Wonder Woman was DC Comics; this is Marvel. Do I know the difference? No, and I didn't try to write about Wonder Woman. But Black Panther is not only the most political superhero movie, but almost not a superhero movie at all. Through its fantastical depiction of the African diaspora and a complex African nation, it's more a glorious, beautiful celebration of being black. It has turned out to be box office magic, and justifiably so. We had to wait in line, at the cineplex on the edge of Oakland, California where I saw it, something like ground zero. Every iMax showing was sold out, every single seat gone for the whole weekend; I didn't know that ever happened and it rarely does. The young black woman behind me as we waited forty minutes in line to go in said she had been to see it yesterday, and was probably going to come back to see it tomorrow. When I saw it, I understood why. If I were African American and a fan of mainstream movies, this would seem an experience to revel in. The women! The clothes! The accoutrements! and the colors! And it is pleasing to learn that the cinematographer is Rachel Morrison, the first woman dp ever nominated for an Oscar - if for a movie I am uncomfortable with, Mudbound. I nominate Black Panther for its look, especially its "Grace Jones looking" shaven-headed, bad-ass women.

    Since experiencing the mastery and brilliance of his Dunkirk, I have wondered whether, if I went back and rewatched Christopher Nolan's (DC Comics) "Batman" movies, they might yield up deeper meanings that eluded me at first. But I'm not sure that Coogler and his cowriter Joe Robert Cole have deeply reimagined the original fantasies of the Marvel Comics masterminds, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, for Black Panther. Nonetheless they and the whole new Black Panther team convey worlds simply by being there, on the screen, in living color. And the images do have a special bright tone (in contrast to Nolan's signature "Batman" murkiness). Oakland may be dark, but Africa is sunny.

    T'Challa is the king of Wakanda, a fictional African country, who also plays the Black Panther, a crime fighting superhero disguised as a panther. (He may look to you simply like a muscular black man in a tight lycra suit.) Of course Wakanda is a utopian distortion of realistic geography, geopolitics, and anthropology - though Boseman has said in an interview with Peter Travers, who has written a rave review of the movie in Rolling Stone, that he had his "African DNA" done, resulting in his genetic makeup's being traced back to four specific tribes and the contemporary African countries where they were. As Black Panther, T'challa wears a costume threaded with the magical mineral vibranium, which he keeps hidden along with other scientific wonders of his country, which at the film's end he tells a body of world leaders he is going to make available. He and his relatives have a blue glow inside their lower lip, a sign of their specialness. The story is laced through and through, in other words, with the routine amount of hokum.

    T'Challa and Erik Killmonger have a "ritual battle" in Wakanda presided over by an impressive and noble Forest Whitaker as Zuri, the King's spiritual mentor, while others look on and allow T'Challa to take a beating. These include Angela Bassett as Ramonda, T'Challa's widowed mother; Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia, T'Challa's ex love and a spy for Wakanda in the outside world; and Danai Gurira as Okoye, head of Wakanda's all-female Special Forces known as the Dora Milaje. These dynamic and glorious women exude the kind of power African American woman are noted for, and this scene is one of the film's most surprising and un-Marvel-like. It is violent, noble, and somehow restrained - compared to the usual blockbusters. Later on as T'Challa sits on a big round backed chair like Huey Newton's wicker throne, a voice refers to how, formerly, black political parties lacked adequate funds for weaponry - clearly a reference to the sixties Black Panther Party.

    Armond White doesn't take note of moments like this in his condemnation of this movie in National Review linking the Valhalla aspects of Wakanda (certainly a fantasy whitewashing of the harsh realities of African politics) with "the faux-naïve heaven of the 1933 negro musical Green Pastures" that he notes "the radicalized sixties" "considered an outrage." The Christianity of Green Patures, White notes, has been replaced by "faux-naïve Afrocentricity" in Black Panther.

    Instead of CGI special effects Coogler often seems rather to make use of quick switches of time and place that keep us on our toes, or just confused. The relation between Oakland, Wakanda, T'Challa, and Black Panther never seemed quite clear to me. But I enjoyed the movie's frequent sense of humor, exemplified by how T'Challa brings his lady to the Oakland ghetto highrise where he, or an earlier avatar, grew up, and she says, "When you said you could take me to California I thought it would be Coachilla. Why here?" Then he explains the high rise isn't for sale, because he, as king, and therefore well funded, has bought it and the other buildings around it to develop as outreach centers. Alas, small African nations aren't rich enough to provide community outreach in urban US ghettos, but isn't it nice to think so?

    Armond White is right: guarded reference to Huey P. Newton notwithstanding, this movie doesn't tell young African Americans about the true political history of their people, the crime of slavery and displacement from roots, or the actual history of the sixties Black Panthers' political activism, substituting instead a fantasy country and a monarchy. But really, Armond, did you expect revolution in a Marvel Comics movie?

    Black Panther, 134 mins., released in US theaters 16 Feb. 2018. In many other countries, including France (AlloCiné press rating a mediocre 3.1 showing very mixed reviews). Metacritic rating a very gushy 88%.


    CHADWICK BOSEMAN AS BLACK PANTHER


    HUEY P. NEWTON OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-19-2018 at 03:46 AM.

  2. #2
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    A favorable review of Black Panther in the right wing Breitbart links the super hero with Trump and the villain with Black Lives Matter


    Black Panther images used by Nolte in "Hollywood elite" column

    Breitbart - the far-right publication and former home base of former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon - has a review of Black Panther by John Nolte that is very favorable about it for the cast and other features; he just oesn't find that enough happens. Further along, Nolte argues - not totally unconvincingly - that T'challa/Black Panther is like Trump and the villain Killmonger is like Black Lives Matter.
    There is a whole lot to like about Marvel’s $200 million Black Panther, and almost as much not to like. For starters, director and co-writer Ryan Coogler does an A+ job of world building (more on this later). In addition, the soundtrack and score also deserve an A+. Then there are the actors, the best cast yet assembled in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (by far).
    The writer finds that T'Challa/Black Panther is like Donald Trump, while his enemy Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) is Black Lives Matter.
    Wakanda is ruled by King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who is also known as the Black Panther. T’Challa is big on border security, believes Wakanda and Wakandans should come first, and fiercely protects his country’s culture from outsiders, including refugees. If this is all starting to sound familiar, it should. Also like President Donald Trump, T’Challa’s beliefs are not based on race. This is not a "black thing." This is a culture/survival thing.
    "Culture survival" is generally code for "white supremacy." Nolte is seeing it here as code, I guess, for "black supremacy." "The progressive Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o)" wants to export vibranium "to help mankind," Nolte points out, but that "is put on hold" when Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) arrives.
    The arrival of Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (an underused Michael B. Jordan) puts all of these arguments on hold. Killmonger (such a great name) is a man with mad killing skills and a burning grudge against Wakanda. T’Challa might be the Black Panther, but Killmonger is a Black Panther in the Huey Newton-Bobby Seale 1960 black nationalist sense. Like the Black Panther Party, Killmonger was born in Oakland, California, and to him everything is a "black thing." He wants the vibranium exported in the form of weapons to overthrow white people.

    Still, Black Panther is not a movie about race, it is a movie about ideas and ideals, about our shared humanity. Our hero is not in favor of protecting ethno-nationalism, but rather a healthy form of nationalism.

    If T’Challa is Trump, Killmonger is Black Lives Matter.
    "Did I just write that?" the author writes. "Yes, I did," he answers.

    This is amusing in light of the articles by black writers arguing that Black Panther is the empowerment movie black people have been waiting for. Later, after approving the movie's "wonderful sense of humor" (as I have), Nolte gets to the right wing politics, though not in the way you might expect. He says there should have been more black actors in Hollywood movies. They would blow away the "metrosexual pretty boys and shapeless forever-girls we’re being force fed."
    Multiculturalism is a cancer. Diversity is code for "hire more leftists!" I hate all that stuff. What I love are movies and movie stars — masculine men, womanly women — and Black Panther is buried in movie stars — real movie stars. The women are sexy, the men are men, the talent and charisma overwhelming.
    But the action scenes are a cheat, and the fuss over protecting Wakanga too, because it proves never to have been in any danger.
    The actors, however, are worth the price of admission. And not just the film’s stars. The ageless Angela Bassett as the queen mother, the fierce and funny Danai Gurira as the king’s chief bodyguard, the endlessly charming Letitia Wright as T’Challa’s sister (and “Q”), Forest Whitaker, Winston Duke… Even the white guys are great. Andy Serkis kills as a South African gangster and Martin Freeman’s reaction-acting is still the best around.

    Black Panther is filled [with] smart politics, imagination, and movie star charisma — all that is missing is a satisfying payoff.
    Nolte finds his review "triggers" the "Hollywood elite"

    On his Facebook page ("Oh noes, Don Cheadle is mad at me"), John Nolte later chortles at how his provocative Black Panther review has "triggered" the "Hollywood elite" and he has a Breitbart piece on that desired reaction.

    Nolte's detailed supposed links between T'Challa's views and program and Trump are pretty fanciful, but let's note that T'Challa is a king (as evidence suggests Trump might like to be). I find it hard to explain how a supposedly white racist publication publishes praise of black actors and calling for more of them in Hollywood movies, but the general slant of this review just goes to show that you can read pretty much anything you want to into Black Panther, because it does not really present any consistent point of view, and certainly not a coherent progressive one.

    Seeing Black Panther as the movie young African Americans have been needing for so long may be an example of desperation (or faute de mieux anyway, as I argued at the outset), but the movie does have positive images of black "leaders" and powerful black women. This is how Black Lives Cofounder Patrisse Cullors sees the movie in a new article in Glamour.

    But this is seeing the movie through rose-colored glasses. Armond White's damning criticism of the film in his review (in the - right wing - National Review) for failing to provide those young people with their real history remains totally valid. My point also remains valid that the movie gives them, in however warped or confused a form, the black super heroes they want.

    Need one point out that super heroes - like kings - are not ideal vehicles for expressing liberal or progressive political views?
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-19-2018 at 03:07 AM.

  3. #3
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    Whether or not you like Black Panther it is a history-making event and has the value of arousing a great deal of discussion. And so there is talk of the black superheroes in movies before this because it's not the first. BFI's online journal Film Forever has an article describing more previous ones than you might remember. See "Before Black Panther: 10 black superheroes." Remember Blade I-III and Hancock?
    In 1998 Blade became the first Marvel Comics character to have a successful big-budget movie adaption, ushering in the current domination of the superhero in blockbuster filmmaking. The titular vampire hunter became perhaps Wesley Snipe’s signature role, but Marvel didn’t have another black lead character until Black Panther, the much anticipated new film from Ryan Coogler.

    Before this, in mainstream films, black heroes tend to be tokenistic team members, or controversially race-swapped versions of originally white characters. Outside of adaptations though, they have fared better, with black stars creating their own heroes to play. Here are 10 notable black on-screen superheroes.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-19-2018 at 10:05 AM.

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