Ivan Dixon in Nothing But a Man.

In my article on blaxploitation cinema from Issue #4 of Images ("Cleopatra Jones 007: Blaxploitation, James Bond, and Reciprocal Co-Optation"), I outlined the emergence and decline of a group of films that found immense popularity in the early 1970s. These films mainly starred black actors in black action narratives which usually concealed subtextual themes of black nationalism and the Black Power rebellion. In fact, most of these films were produced by white-controlled Hollywood studios in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of such films as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971 by Melvin Van Peebles) and Shaft (1971 by Gordon Parks) and the box office clout of the black ticket buying public. Because of these industrial strategies, this group of films became known as blaxploitation, due both to the economic strategies of the film industry and the exploitation of the black public’s desire to see black faces and themes in non-subjugational positions on the screen.

Most notable of these filmmakers were Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry, Haile Gerima and Julie Dash. Drawing on their own experiences in the black community and varied political and social discourses of the time including black nationalism, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, anti-war rhetoric and Marxist doctrine, these filmmakers sought an aesthetic and mode of representation and narration that spoke to the realities of black existence and the state of the black family under a hegemonic rule of white racism and subordination. They also drew upon a long and important history of black independent film making in America including the Lincoln Motion Picture Company of the 1910s, Oscar Micheaux in the 1920s and 1930s, Spencer Williams in the 1940s, and even white independent filmmakers of the 1960s including Michael Roemer and John Cassavetes who each made films dealing with American race relations in light of the Civil Rights movement from a decidedly non-hegemonic white position. James Snead writes of their project, "[T]heir films protest against the form and content of the tradition they were being taught. Their chief ambition was to rewrite the standard cinematic language of cuts, fades, frame composition, and camera movement in order to represent their own "nonstandard" vision of black people and culture. (117)

The sad reality of the body of work these filmmakers produced is that it was never widely distributed, scarcely reviewed in the mainstream press, and is now nearly impossible to find in the video store. While a fairly large body of academic writings on these films exists and the occasion retrospective springs up, such as the recently held showcase of Charles Burnett’s work at New York City’s Lincoln Center, these films are largely unknown to mainstream America.

One connection that is often made, but scarcely engaged, is the influence and similarities with Italian neo-realism of the post-war era and black independent cinema of the L.A. School. Monona Wali has called Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep (1977), "[A] masterpiece of American neo-realism"(16). Italian neo-realism mainly evolved out of the broken conditions following the German occupation and the allied liberation following World War II. Realism was an underlying concern of all neo-realist films as they strived to portray the real world as it was at that time in Italy.² Amos Vogel wrote of neo-realism:

The great humanist masterpieces of this period...sprang directly from a social matrix in which all conventional values had been called into question if not destroyed outright, in which the individual was at odds with society, in which social, political, and moral issues were constantly raised in the daily life of the masses. In their best works, the neo-realists...raised problems of general human import, far transcending narrow national boundaries, and seemed to capture the very substance of contemporary reality in all their quivering immediacy. (17)

Many commentators have marked the influence of neo-realism on black films coming out of the L.A. School starting in the 1970s, and indeed, Vogel’s statement could be applied to the L.A. school nearly word for word.

When approaching films like Killer of Sheep, white director Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man (1964) or Billy Woodberry's powerful Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), one is quickly inundated with images and thematics that are directly reminiscent of Italian neo-realist films such as Roberto Rossellini's Paisan (1946) and Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948). All three of these films display many important similarities with neo-realism that heighten their impact.

Killer of Sheep finds its main character, Stan, trying to cope with his limited existence. All he has are his family and his nightmarish job in a slaughterhouse. Despite this, he perseveres in the hope of a better life bringing to mind the many terrible existences of characters in the Italian neo-realist films and their struggle to survive. Nothing But a Man finds its main character, Duff, struggling against a racist social climate, repeatedly coming up against the walls white America constructs around him. This too brings to mind Italian neo-realism’s concern with the inability of the individual to change, escape or circumvent the social strictures that bind him into place. Finally, Bless Their Little Hearts ponders extensively on the role of the physical environment on those unfortunate enough to be kept within its boundaries. Many Italian neo-realist films, particularly Visconti’s La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles), explore how a harsh physical environment degrades the human spirit, particularly when the dominant exploit, or confine, those who must sustain themselves in it.