Synopses & Reviews
More than any other black leader, H. Rap Brown, chairman of the radical Black Power organization SNCC, came to symbolize the ideology of black revolution. Die Nigger Die!-which was first published in 1969, went through seven printings, and has long been unavailable-tells the story of the making of a revolutionary. But it is much more than a personal history-it is a call to arms, an urgent message to the black community to be the vanguard force in the struggle of oppressed people. Forthright, sardonic, and shocking, Die Nigger Die! is not only an illuminating and dynamic reading experience, but a vitally important document that is essential to understanding the upheavals of the late 1960s. University of Massachusetts professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell has updated this edition, covering Brown's decades of harassment by law enforcement agencies, his extraordinary transformation into an important Muslim leader, and his sensational trial.
Review
"Essential reading for anyone who cares about movies." Martha P. Nochimson, Film Quarterly
Review
"[E]xposes producers who maul directors' work; distributors who hoard gems; and critics who enable big, dumb movies to get even bigger and dumber." Chicago Magazine
Review
"Rosenbaum expands notions of what should constitute our film culture, and does so in a way that's exciting to anyone who cares about movies as an art form." National Post
Review
"A feisty-to-frenetic tone, spotty logic, and the self-serving recycling of earlier views and reviews do not totally obscure the possibility that much of Rosenbaum's rant may be to some degree right." Library Journal
Synopsis
Is the cinema, as writers from David Denby to Susan Sontag have claimed, really dead? Contrary to what we have been led to believe, films are better than ever we just can't see the good ones.
Movie Wars cogently explains how movies are packaged, distributed, and promoted, and how, at every stage of the process, the potential moviegoer is treated with contempt. Using examples ranging from the New York Times's coverage of the Cannes film festival to the anticommercial practices of Orson Welles, Movie Wars details the workings of the powerful forces that are in the process of ruining our precious cinematic culture and heritage, and the counterforces that have begun to fight back.
About the Author
H. Rap Brown is now the Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Although his revolutionary sentiments remain undimmed, he now leads over 25 Muslim communities from his headquarters in Atlanta, and has been a frequent speaker at universities and Islamic organizations. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Introduction: Is the Producer Always Right? 1
Chapter One: Is the Cinema Really Dead? 19
Chapter Two: Some Vagaries of Distribution and Exhibition 39
Chapter Three: Some Vagaries of Promotion and Criticism 49
Chapter Four: At War with Cultural Violence: The Critical
Reception of Small Soldiers 63
Chapter Five: Communications Problems and Canons 79
Chapter Six: The AFI's Contribution to Movie Hell: or, How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love American Movies 91
Chapter Seven: Isolationism as a Control System 107
Chapter Eight: Multinational Pest Control: Does American
Cinema Still Exist? 129
Chapter Nine: Trafficking in Movies (Festival-Hopping in the
Nineties) 143
Chapter Ten: Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge 175
Conclusion: The Audience Is Sometimes Right 197
Index 227