TO CHANGE THE WORLD - Essay

     When I make a film its a creation.  No matter if its short or long, serious or funny, what genre I follow, or what story or plot lines I use it's a new creation when complete.  It comes from within me, to have an effect on everyone who views it.  This effect can be either large or small, profound or insignificant, but there is still an effect.  The joy of film then for me is to make a film which will have a profoundly, positive effect on those people who watch it.  Film is the key to changing the world, documenting our place in it, or for distraction and relaxation.  I went into police work with the idea that I had a responsibility to help the world and the people in it.  I found police work to be ineffective for the purposes I joined it.  I now find film to be the place where I can achieve those goals.

     In the movie The Glass Shield, Charles Bernett does not depict black life in the standard media fashion.  Instead Bernett chooses to show several different aspects of black life.  Bernett effectively gives all the characters in the film multi-- dimensional personalities.  We see not only the surface characteristics but also deeper into the characters personality.  This enables us to make our own value judgments about the characters and their actions in the film.

     Through the scenes of JJ (the main character) working in the police force, we see JJ grow and change throughout the film.  This differs from the standard media version of black life.  In the standard media version, blacks are not shown as thinking, growing, or changing: instead they stay the same from beginning to end.  They are only shown as token characters. JJ however, starts out very innocent and enthusiastic about his job and the difference he feels he can make in the world.  By doing this JJ is shown in a very positive and likable way.  His character reacts and changes slowly through the film as the events of every day police work takes its toll on him.  Towards the end of the film JJ has become much harder, wiser about the world, and closed off to his friends and family.

     I think this film is very realistic and effective in doing this, because as JJ struggled with all these every day occurrences, I was reminded that I had the same struggles as a military policeman.  In this way I felt connected with JJ.  I think that is why the film is effective, by allowing JJ to react honestly to the situations he's portrayed in, there is a connection made with the audience.  This connection then allows us to see black life as it really is, and how similar all people act when put into the same situation.  For myself, when I saw the prejudices and corruption of the military police, I became very disconnected to people, and had to eventually leave law enforcement.  JJ has a similar reaction, only he is forced out in the end, and does not choose to leave as I did.

     In contrast to The Glass Shield, Tongues Untied directed by Marlon Riggs is another independent film that explores racism.  However, for me this film did not work.  Instead of a narrative story line, Tongues Untied uses a more experimental technique to show how the lives of gay black men really are.  The film employs the use of personal statements and poems written by Riggs and other gay black men as its narrative and is also visually explicit in its portrayal of these men.  For myself I found the movie difficult to watch and had to turn my head away at several points in the film  This film is only an hour long and was made on a smaller budget than The Glass Shield, which had Miramax behind it.  What I saw in it that didn't work, however, was that it was only intended for a small audience.  The film was made by gay black men, for gay black men.  A strategy that I personally do not believe works.

     It's my belief that a film on race relations and racism of any kind must be geared towards a broad audience.  Most notably young white males because they presumably will be the next generation to hold power in the government.  I think that The Glass Shield does this and does it much more effectively than Tongues Untied which has very limited appeal.  Of course this is my own opinion and anyone else watching the films could get something entirely different out of them.  This is also a mode point since neither of these films received any significant showings to a large audience.  It was my goal in this essay to compare these two films along with several others and discuss the styles used in them and their effectiveness in fighting racism.  I was unable to find any type of supporting or refuting evidence in my research.  All I could find on the films were reviews and none of them dealt very deep with the concept of racism in the films.  The closest I could come was a quotation from Dr. Patricia Zimmermann a film theorist, who has written several books on film and is a professor in the film department of Ithaca College.  Her quote loosely interpreted is that the audience is not a consideration when a film is being made.  In this, I am certain that she is talking about the corporations that are backing the film and not the individual filmmaker.  

      It would seem that the issue of why people make their film is not discussed much, probably because the reasons are different from person to person:  in much the same way that the response to a film defers from person to person who view it.  The one thing I'm certain of is that there is a response and that's the important thing.