critic peter goralnick author of numerous books including his two volume elvis presley biography last train to memphis and careless love. they're here discussing will's new book colorization 100 years of black films in a white world. publishers weekly calls it an engrossing account of a vital but often slated cinematic tradition full of fascinating lore and dwight garner writes for the new york times. this is sweeping history, but in hagood's hands, it feels crisp urgent and paired down like a good movie. it pops from the start. we're so pleased to be hosting this event tonight. the digital podium is yours will and peter. thank you. thank you. well, it's great to be here with you. i wish we were here in person. and congratulations on the book. we've known each other a long time. we've known each other over 30 years. and all that time, you know, i feel like we've been not so secret santa asks. yeah, last you've come out and declared yourself, and i wondered if you always had. book like this in the back of your mind. big book resting on the twin pillars of art and social history and storytelling too. or maybe more to the point. how did you come to write the book? yes, well lovely of you peter to be here. with me you you've been a dear friend in an inspiration over the years. so i just wanted to say that when i was a kid growing up. in columbus, ohio my first journeys outside the home solo journeys were to the garden theater on north high street. i was nine ten years old nine and ten years old when my mother first started letting me go to movies. the ritual would be go to church come home then change your clothes, then you can go to the movie. and so she would give me 50 cents. it costs a quarter to get in and the other quarter was for my snacks and i sat there like we all do in awe of the magic of cinema. and so there's this little kid looking up at the 60 foot wide screen and on that screen there were stars like lee marvin liz taylor henry fonda, robert mitchum a robert vaughn paul newman these were all people who i just grew very fonda they were movie stars. but they all had one thing in common. they were all white as a kid at the garden theater. in the 60s, i never saw a black face on that screen never. and so i went away to college in the 70s and i'd come home and then there was a new theater downtown called the southern theater and they were showing cool hip. black movies like superfly in lady sings the blues and shaft movies with great urban musical scores and then years after that here i am on a movie set in new orleans. i hate the name drop, but there was a soiree at a house. it was sandra bullock's house the actress lee daniels. who directed the butler for that was based on a story that i had written? he had a soiree one evening, and i'm in the kitchen and i'm looking out over this. over this crowd monty racial cast was in that movie jane fonda force whitaker oprah winfrey lenny kravitz mariah carey jane fonda great cast. and i said to myself my goodness. somebody needs the right a book about this moment. and then terrence howard who was also in the movie walked over to me and he said well. you're the writer. so you want to write the book and that really was the evening back in. 12 that the idea for this book was born that's pretty cool. i didn't realize it went back to that specific kind of a moment. but now it's a it's a very different kind of a book in some ways then your other books on your biography of sammy davis jr. then you're great biography of sugar ray robinson or adam clayton powell all these all the orthods of columbus for that matter, but it seems to me what it has in common. is it's it's the storytelling. i mean, it's like a masterclass in storytelling colorization, you know know with all these unexpected. connections folded within the stories you're telling so you get well you get the an obvious one like the sidney poitier lorraine hansberry raising in the sun connection, but then you get harry belafonte being backed up by charlie parker's combo. yeah, you know or you have zornil hurston and fanny hurst when you're doing the imitation of life the many permeations. you know of passing like the movie that's out now, right? or just a fascinating evolution of plugging and best across all these different cultural. barriers, you know so you go from gullah to gershwin with sammy davis jr. is impromptu audition for samuel goldwin for sort of a formal one, and then i think it was was the other one and in the, you know restaurant or a club but any case yes, all of these things are just it's full of such such vivid anecdotes and such. telling detail so, but i wonder did you what did you take from the say the discipline or the lessons that you learned from writing these biographies from writing the extended profiles you did, you know for so many years on figures is different as marion barry or james baldwin and william styron, you know or eugene allen the white house butler. did you find were there lessons to apply to bring over from there or do and and or was a you know, did you sense the differences in writing this did you have to find new ways of telling the story? one of the things that has driven me as a writer is that i love to find a side door or in. attic door to go into and run down a story. i mean so many people go in the front door and they just get the story. that's right in front of them. but if i go through a side door or if i jump down through the chimney, you know if i go at a story in an odd angle and then i come up with these it seems to me. riches riches like you know cinema was still new in 1915 and yet. he was the president of the united states woodrow wilson showing. uh very racist movie. the birth of a nation in the white house because woodrow wilson had a friend who wrote the novel that the movie. was based on but one of the fascinating things for me in that chapter was to find the maid. of the director dw griffith had a black maid and she was brave enough to stand up to him. after she had watched some scenes of that movie and she walked up to him one day in his study. and she said you have hurt me. mr. griffith by what you have done to my people. period you have hurt me mr. griffith by what you have done to my people. and i just thought wow. imagine what courage it took? for this black may to tell this famous. white movie director who paid her weekly? how she told him that he had hurt her through this magical thing called? cinema in movies you sit. in the theater and yet the real world is just 70 feet away out the front door. and i thought that if i can find the off-screen story. to tell along with the on-screen story. then it would be pretty fascinating because hollywood. lags behind the reality of this country the reality is that there were people fighting. racism on the streets and they were dying for it, but we didn't see civil rights movies in the 50s even in the 60s. it was very rarely that a movie. in that a movie talked about race. we're racism and when it did it was in a very happy manner almost sidney poitier. he played a lot of figures who didn't really have a edge to him in many of those movies some did it he did his best, but hollywood was really very slow. to translate what was happening in the country, uh to what was going on screen and in the western director, john ford says something to the effect. if there's the truth. in the legend always print the legend and the legend in hollywood is hooray for hollywood. but if you tell that story up against african-american history then you really come out with a completely different story and one that is as epic as the life of hollywood itself. well, yeah. no, i mean and and going back to the first black filmmaker the dominant black filmmaker of his age, which i want to get to in a second but you touch on a movie like nothing like a man for example with ivan dixon and abby lincoln which does tell much more. it's almost a 90s movie in a certain sense made in the whatever it was around 1970 or so, maybe yeah. yeah, exactly nothing but a man. yeah beautiful movie. yeah. no, i mean it really ahead of its time and there it is in the book, but also, you know when you talk about looking for the different angle everything's about the angle of perception in a sense and i always think about my friend the photographer great photographer david garr who said if every photographer went to the right of the stage. i went to the left of the stage because it gave him a different angle. we'll look for instance. it was gone with the wind two angles you have on it our hattie mcdaniel. won the first black one. the first black guy was the first black woman to win an oscar. yeah and she but yard backstory. of her life and her brothers lives in menstruals in black -- shows. yes. it just gives it such so much more of an edge and when you go into that in the whole thing of minstrelsy and it's an integral part and in the same similar way and you you may you could have lots more to say about this you talk about margaret mitchell and the point you portrayal a young woman who goes after college discovers their colored people there and goes back home again. and writes a novel which is a huge success with a movie based on it. martin luther king yeah, you martin luther king. who was in not my uncle but anyway singing in the choir at the opening of the show? yes, but he also got the conversion of margaret mitchell when her maid again bringing in the maid when her maid can't get medical help and she then donates money to who is it to to the morehouse medical school right right more house. yes. that's a very beautiful story. in its own way and for its time. margaret mitchell had had a black may who got very sick in. margaret mitchell was astonished that she couldn't find. a hospital to admit and care for her her black maid and even though margaret mitchell was willing to pay the bill no white hospital would take and care for her maid and so margaret mitchell had to bring this lady home and she died because she couldn't get medical care in. georgia effective margaret mitchell so much that she wrote a letter. to benjamin mayes and morehouse and told him i would like to contribute some money to train or to help train. help fund the training of young black medical students but she was so afraid that word might seep out in high society that she a white woman had helped black students that she asked. she asked benjamin mays the head of morehouse to keep it quiet. which he which he did but she continued to send money which was very nice of her. but it also showed that she had lived in a different world than her black me who lived in you know. jim crow world in georgia and was not treated as other human beings who were white were treated and of course that novel has been praised by many many whites through the years and still lists. in blacks had a completely different. perception of that novel as they should have. i mean it's racist stereotype. in the novel and yet it was it was a very successful. novel and so was the movie and the movie directly led to the casting of having mcdaniel in her character had one name mammy. mammy i mean, she wasn't even considered human enough to have a first and last name. it was just mammy and that really too. was what cinema thought? of the black female that they were only suited best suited. to play maids well, and it's like you tell the story. i mean, i was just gonna go back and say so this is not a redemptive story in terms of migrant mitchell, but it gives shadings that didn't exist otherwise, and and i think you you write that prior to that. she had turned down benjamin maze, you know in his request for contribution, and yes, yes mates know. so so, i mean it's but no, it seems to me that that in so many ways shows the slow degree of evolution that takes place over a long period of time. i mean, this is your book is almost like a very slow reveal because yeah, yeah, that's what is what was so obvious not just to the black black population but too large, you know elements of the population, but not to the you know mainstream. let's say one racism again with the wind was the book and the but there it was and it took a long time and took a lot of things, you know, wake up calls and there is and in none of the none of this do you get up on a soapbox and say this is the way it should be or look look here's here's a complete turnaround because it generally isn't a complete turnaround, but but it's at least evolutionary step, right? right. i had a question for you. i mean did you did you always? want did you want to become a writer did you envision yourself as a writer? and if you were going to be a writer what you know, sort of writer. did you think you might become? yes. no, i i did not always want to become a writer. i when i was in college i majored in. urban planning then when i got out of college, i got a job as a social worker and then another job and had a job on a weekly newspaper. in the pay was so low that i quit i moved to new york city in the 80s. it went through the executive training program at macy's department store i became a low level floor manager at macy's my mother was telling people my son is running macy's and work that job for two years then i got fired. i just wasn't very good. one of the store managers said retelling will is just not in your soul and i wanted to say no kidding. yeah, you aren't kidding there when you say that and so, you know, move back home. in the columbus, ohio and looked in the mirror and said, okay. you're 25 years old. it's time to get serious find a career and i did like writing in college and i did like writing for that. little weakly newspaper that i had that job for about five months. and so i started writing newspapers around the country and and that's how i got in. in the newspapers. i went to charleston west virginia and then i went to the pittsburgh post-gazette then i went to the boston globe for many years and then and then i went to the washington post but i always knew to that i wanted to write long form stories. i wanted to be able to just sit inside of a story and really wanted to write. things that were big you know big why stories you know and so i would buy the newspapers that happened to give writers a lot of space in their feature stories. so wherever i was at i would always buy the los angeles times and the chicago tribune and now by the boston globe and the new york times and the washington post newspapers. they had a lot of space because i just like to be able you know to write loan form it seemed like it. it would ask a lot of you to keep a story going for 70 inches and i just like that challenge. the and when i started writing these long form stories people started whispering to me. you want to write books and you know? is very easy to say that to someone but it's it's not easy to find your way into into the book world, and i was at the boston globe actually in stan grossfeld two-time pulitzer prize winning photographer in a very dear friend of mine came up with an idea to take a trip down to mississippi river. in honor of mark twain's birthday, and so i took that trip me and staying down to mississippi river. a wrote a whole whole magazine issue that was devoted to his photographs and my words and then i was approached by the atlantic monthly press and they asked me to turn that into a book me and stan did and so that was my book our first book and then i was often running same light. well, of course, you mentioned those newspapers. they all have magazines in those days. yes. so the long form wasn't confined to the news to the to the magazine necessarily but it gave a natural encouragement and an outlet but what strikes me the most about that i then that may have been how we met. i mean i wrote you a letter about one of your early stories, and i don't know whether it was that one or the story about james baldwin and william styron. yeah, it was that one. it was scary about the trip down to mississippi state right because i still have that letter. thank you. yeah, that that's how we met. yeah, but no what struck me, you know from the very first and you know people can write long they can use a lot of words. they can repeat words they can you know, turn around and circles and stuff. but what struck me and this is, you know, i wonder if you knew you had this but it seemed to me from the very beginning there was an emotional impact. there was an emotional core to every story you wrote and that's what really from my perspective is. what distinguished your writing from the from the first that i was exposed to it and then in the books and was that something that you naturally came to or is that just the way you know you felt us and saw the stories was in a sense from the inside out. yeah. the only way that i think i can answer that because that peter is a wonderful question it was my grandmother who raised me. in my grandparents i live with my mother but he was my grandmother who seemed to take a real interest. in me my mother had jobs and she was often away working at night. and i think my grandmother was such a sensitive soul that i knew when i went out into the world. she expected me. to be good and to be sincere and treat people in my stories the way i myself would like to be treated and so i do look back. on to some of those stories and and there is a how can i put it? you know, there is a i don't know. maybe tenderness there is a tenderness in a lot of my stories i even think about this book my new book about movies and i break off. in one chapter and i write about all of the black. actresses who had enormous talent but we're forced. to play made roles you know some of them had to talent. to do shakespeare plays but they were forced to do. made roles in many of them have never been written about and i said to myself even though they're gone. maybe they've got a nephew a great nephew a great niece somebody out there. who knows about? their family member who acted in movies back in the 40s and 50s and bam now that name is written in this book. it's there. they've been honored in some way. there's a great moment in the book at least a great moment to me. lena horne, beautiful actress could sing could act and hollywood didn't know what to do with her. and she kept getting invited to play maids to play maids and so her father finally flew out to hollywood and asked to see one of the studio chiefs. and her father said look. if my daughter needs a maid. how higher one for but she's not going to play a maid on screen. you know, what a beautiful little story i mean he gets on a plane and insist on seeing this studio chief and saying. i got money a lot of money. and then my daughter needs to me, i'll hire one for but she sure as heck is not going to play one on no movie screen. yeah, and she didn't. that's funny. i was going to bring up that story because it just but i mean she you know, and you know, we're speaking i mean just for the audience and maybe everybody in the audience knows this about one of the most beautiful women in the world. yeah. she never got a role, you know, she was you know, she could have been able to gardener. she could have been anybody you wanted elizabeth taylor or anything. yes. she was offered made roles. right, and i should point out that one of the things that struck me the most or one of the things that strikes me and talking to you you came up in an age of sort of me journalism. that was one of the predom predominant things in which often writers showed off and probably still do at the expense of their subjects, right, which is not how i do it's easy. it's easy to do then and i just want a second what you said, which is you've never done that ever in anything you've ever written or anything i've ever read. maybe you're hiding the rest. thank you, but i've alright now i had a thought. i mean i felt sometimes reading this book and it reads it's a wonderful narrative. i mean, it's a big book it takes in a lot of subjects. it covers everybody from you know, trayvon martin, i mean every the it's a social history as well as a movie history. yeah. yeah, but i found like and sometimes it must have been like coming home or revisiting old friends for you. so the people like sugar ray robinson. you know sammy davis jr. lena horne, adam clayton powell come up not because you're pulling them in not because you know something about them, but because they all lived and i lived in the same world occupied the same space. it was a fact of segregation that they were thrown together. whether they chose to be or not, right, so i wonder i mean to me in a sense the book and it's this is sort of a funny thing because you say oh what's a history of you know, african-american movies or the african-american role in movies but in a lot of ways it seems to me it's it's a story about community and i don't know if that strikes you that way or not, but i just wanted to throw that out to you. i think you're absolutely right. i think. for the black star the black entertainer in the 40s 50 60s, it was a fairly small world. everybody seen seem to know. each other and they all often were so so proud of each other i mean even now if you watch some of the news real footage of the marginal washington there weren't a whole lot of hollywood figures there because many of the managers in the agents of hollywood actors told them don't go to the march on washington it. will hurt your career. and so the ones who did go. they showed a certain bravery and so it was beautiful for lena horne to be there hugging sammy davis jr. who was hugging eartha kitt who was hugging ruby who was hugging marlon brando who was hugging james baldwin who was hugging and james garner, i mean it was just let's not forget harry belafonte though. and yeah, of course very bellefonte who was very close to martin luther king jr. and helped raise money for the march on washington and you know, these were people who read? jet magazine ebony magazine cpm magazine, it really was two worlds in this in this country during that era. i think sometimes. or often students who i teach will think that all of this just sort of happened naturally, right, you know blacks and film and blacks and tv. no, it's been a struggle up a hill. uh, i just found it. very fascinating to weave the threads. together of this whole march toward towards cinema. toward representation, right right in cinema, you know because the movies are big. i mean we send our movies. all over the world and foreign foreigners often shape their see if their attitudes about this country. by our movies you know and so that's both. i don't know. not good and sometimes often bad that our movies. shape foreign feelings about about this country well, which is why you want to grab control you want to you know declare? you know an independence of spirit and independence of identity and and do a representation. it's truer but one of the correct me just in terms of the community was this is so much the theme of james baldwin. let's say in the fire next time i mean talking about all the wonderful things all the right things that come out of that closed community, right and and it's also you know, i should point out to because i think everybody who is watching is going to want to buy not just this book. but the complete will hey good whoever and i'm pointing them towards specifically towards the sugar ray robinson. who's intent is not just to provide a biography of you know, great blocks or in a person a very devon air man, right but also of this community of this world of the way this world flowered and expanded and i get affects me that some of that is in is in you know is in the new book it is yes. yes. you're exactly right. i mean, i think that the and i think that if you follow the trick a black of blacks and cinema if you follow that trek. as i do in a hundred hundred plus years. and i've used cinema as the spokeswill will to tell the story. of this country it's like james baldwin said i love this country so much that i have the right to criticize it. and so i love this country very much and i love movies very much like and it seems to me to tell the twin stories. in a way that's honest in a way that really utilized all of my skills. then i think that i have something. in that great arc of storytelling to share with the world well, yeah and wait and in that sense, it's it's a personal book like all the others even though it has less the appearance of that than some of the others. you're right. you're right now. i i had two last questions and we may get interrupted because with there may be questions from the reader so you can choose which you want to answer first. all right one was i wanted you to talk a little about oscar michel, you know the founder of the black cinema and the person who has is a name. i think that your rescuing from history to some extent. i know there's been writing about him. i wanted to what extent you know, his films have been shown in recent years, but the other thing i wanted to ask you and it's like i say you can choose whichever you want you want to okay? which of these movies? or any other movie in the same ballpark, you know of what you're writing about which of these movies still hits you. the hardest today, which do you go back to or which you know, which just impinges forcibly upon your memory and your experience yeah. you know what? i think i like to very quickly answer both. i'm going to answer the second question first. to sydney poitier movies because i was fairly young when i saw both of these movies and if you are young young black kid, and you see somebody on tv, you know, and in the 60s. your parents would really really grab you and they would really want you to sit down in front of that screen so that you could see somebody who look like you same skin color as you i mean. white kids had a whole buffet how they could see somebody on screen like them 25, you know. seven days a week, but and if you were little will hey good. no. that didn't happen. you felt fortunate. you felt extremely giddy when you saw. sydney poitier in lilies of the field where he played a handyman who helped some east german nuns who were living? in the american southwest finished he helped them finish building. their chapel and it's a movie and i think it's still stands up even though his race is never mentioned in the movie. invest problematic he has no history in the movie. his only history actually is that he's a good man, right and it's about goodness. and that's fine. we can take that and then the other movie is another sidney poitier movie. in the heat of the night i think that was so beautiful. it was a 19. 67 movie and it showed. a black man using his wits to help solve a crime. in the south there was terror going on in the american south in 1967. and it took norman jewison who was a director and rod steiger and sidney poitier all had a team together to make that movie which was very brave. especially if you look at those two movies 1963 and 1967 course sidney poitier one is best actor oscar in 1964 for his role in 1963 lilies of the field. he was the first black man to win a best actor oscar. and so those are just two seminal yeah movies going back. and oscar michel unsung heroic figure of cinema in this nation's history. was in the midwest he moved to the plains. in south dakota. he got money from the homestead act. he got lonely at night started writing novels. it was always. in the back of his mind that this racist movie was still playing around the country in the movie i refer to is. the birth of a nation asking michelle thought he could turn some of the novels that he self-published. he thought he could turn down into movies and he started writing scripts. he raised some money. he started making small short films. nobody in hollywood wanted anything. to do with him so he had to go around. he raised money. he sold his books literally. out of the back of his car he saved money. he bought some film equipment and really i mean he was old school old school. he made his movies and he went to black theaters and he asked them to show his movies. he was so new, you know, and they started showing his movies and things grew from there he was this nation's first serious black. filmmaker and he plays a huge role in this. book well, i mean he any in the story is so idiosyncratic. and he was you know, you say he wrote novels. he did right novels, but they were so autobiographical him he grows. yes. he's he's good. he just well, yeah. yeah there he is in south dakota his heroes in south dakota here. marriage is here marriage the father-in-law susan, you know, it's like yeah, he makes a movie about that. yeah. yeah, and so, i mean, it's just it's both a wonderful story but also an inspiring story in the sense that you know, it it is this is a person who's just fighting the odds. i mean talk about us anybody roll or something. right? right. he's fighting the odds and he's doing it in a way that is so striking and so it is socratic. so it's a wonderful story now, you've got to make a movie about him. that's amazing. yes. i yes. i'm hoping that this book. really brings more attention to him. you know and to all of these unsung her rose in heroines. there's some great stories in here and there's some great white heroes in this book too whites who who tried to expand filmmaking and you know, who's you know who have landed on the right side of history and their stories are told in this book as well. yeah. no, absolutely. well, i see serena on the corner. yes, right and that okay. we have some great questions from the audience here. so it's just jump right in we have one question here. how would you describe the evolution of racism and film from when you were a child to the present day, so there's a nice big big opening question there for you. yes, you know i had you know, say that the beginning of the of the talk that when i was a child, you know and went to the garden theater and my hometown and columbus, ohio and i never saw any black figures. on the screen and so you know things are much different now, of course, and i'm very happy very happy that they are i don't think hollywood. has moved as fast as they could have of course, i think we had two years 2015 and 2016 where? where there were no black nominees for the oscars and that started the hashtag? oscars oscar so white which may national and international news it put hollywood on the front pages of newspapers and hollywood likes to be on the front pages of newspapers for when their movies make a lot of money or the movies win a wars. they don't want to be on the front pages of newspapers around the issue of race, and that's what happened for two. too straight years and so you know, i think hollywood has the talent to do much better. look it's only been in the last year that we've seen tv commercials. with interracial couples. it's only been in the last year and with with same-sex couples. this is 2021. and we've had mixed race. mix race marriages for many decades but for some reason somebody or madison avenue or in hollywood did not deem it safe enough to have a black man and a white woman in their in their biracial child in a tv commercial. until this year literally until this year, so i think that the forces in hollywood have to move faster because in this i think that the the society is moving is moving quicker. then hollywood. yeah. all right. lots of questions here coming in now and more minutes. so we'll get to as many as we can sorry for any folks. we aren't able to get to we have a question from alex here. how does the history of black television inters act of that intersect with that of black cinema? hmm. well, here's one. vivid story about that alex haley, he was he was a writer he was a journalist who had been working on this novel. actually, there's a nonfiction novel, you know. you know, it was a story. and that was based on. his family's history from slavery up until the 1970s and that book when it came out. it was caught roots roots and hollywood one of the big studios. purchase the rights to roots they were going to make a big movie a big saga slavery right up to modern times about in this black man's family, but the studio was being slow of foot haley got upset he figured that they we're not going to make the movie and so he bought the rights back. he took it to tv. and then it became a miniseries in 1976 roots up until that time. it was the most watched tv miniseries in history. but hollywood ran from the story and and that that book that story was saved. by tv by the small screen and david wolper he was a tv producer he had. you know he had to wear with all to do it. he really wanted to make it in it won a lot of awards many of those. stars in the movie though even with their success in roots could not find work on. on the big screen in the 1970s and i tell that story here in the book. great. thanks. alana asks, how far into the present day do you address in the book? do you discuss movies like black panther and/or get out and if not, how do you you feel about these movies? how do you feel these movies play a role in the history slash evolution of black folks / black community in movies? alana i certainly do ryan coogler. i check check with bozeman jordan peele. they're all in this book. and so you know, it really is a sweeping history. yeah, you know all of the current names that we know they are here in this book. that's great and that leads. sort of interestingly into this next question, which is do you have an opinion about recent film slash series that put african-american at the center of america narratives that they've been kept out of in the past and thinking especially if shows like hollywood and lovecraft count country. yes long overdue. i'm very happy to see that this is happening. it's happening more. on the small screen, you know, and that's a good thing. i mean hulu is doing some great work apples doing some great work. hbo showtime i mean there is some great work being done on this small screen. it seems that the people who run this small screen and they're streaming services. i'm just spread their want their arms and they've said come we will set up. a writer's room and you can go do your thing. and i think that that is a very beautiful thing and i tell some of those stories in this book as well. great. just i think we have time for a couple more. now says i did any pivotal behind the screen behind the camera change makers come up in your research about the changing perceptions of black art and black film actors. i often think about the bias towards whiteness that has been evident in color film exposure and reference cards makeup hair and lighting even today. oh my good. that is a great question. who asked that question and no. thank you neil for that question. that's it. that's a great question. it was lee daniels and the director who made a movie called. the butler and that was based on a story that i wrote and that story was about a man who was a butler in the white house. for 34 years under eight presidents and so you had two ways to go. i guess if you were making that film you could. focus on the eight presidents who were all white or you could focus on this man. black man, who was a butler and show all love the things that he went through in his life. he saw the civil rights movement, you know. he was there when? when folks were murdered he met martin luther king jr. he met sammy davis jr. he met frank sinatra. he met him. you met michael jackson on these people coming into the white house. lee daniels chose to focus on the butler and on the black man. it wasn't a white savior movie which hollywood had attendance to make those kind of movies. so i think if you get a sensitive movie director, like lee daniels and then you will see that they will focus on who the story is meant to be focused on there was a story that came out movie that came out in 1988, mississippi burning about the three civil rights workers who were killed in mississippi in the stars of that movie were two white men played by willem dafoe and gene hackman. they were the fbi agents who supposedly cracked the case. nothing was further from the truth. there were no white if there were no white fbi agents in, mississippi. in 1964, but the movie made you think that there were it did not focus on the brave the very brave. a black souls in mississippi who had been weak who had been beaten murder and who had been marching for years and so the lens the lens in the soul of the filmmaker matters you had ava duvernay who made selma which was a titanic movie to me, and she should have been nominated for an oscar and she wasn't in that's a shame, but you know. she is a great filmmaker and she's going to she's going to do a lot of great things during her career. and i tell that story of selma in her role and how the movie got made and her backstory. i tell that story about. david duvernay in this book, so um, it is a wide sweeping story with a y angled lens. thank you so much. i think that's a good point to end on as any we're right at eight o'clock. this has been really just wonderful. thank you both for being here. it's it's it's just a really. important interesting thing to spend time thinking about and talking about and really appreciate both of you being here to to shed some light on it and and we're all really excited about colorization and hope that all of you out there will check it out. i just dropped the link into the chat again, so it should be easy to get to but you can also just find it at harvard comm by searching colorization any last words either of you? i want to thank you peter. i want to thank all of the viewers. someone said this book in some ways is a love letter. to hollywood. i i think that there are moments when you will read the book and you may think that which is nice, you know, but it's also a very truthful story a someone who now is in movies and hollywood phoned me the other day in he told me that he thinks this movie will help. i mean that he thinks this book will help every black actor actress cinematographer film director dresser hair stylist etc in hollywood, and i hope it does thank you both and thanks to everyone who submitted questions we had a lot and they were great. i'm sorry. we couldn't get to all of them. but again a huge. thank you to will and peter for this conversation and to all of you out there for spending your evening with us on behalf of harvard bookstore here in cambridge, massachusetts. keep reading pick up colorization and stay well. thank you. bye peter. bye serena. you're watching book tv for a complete television schedule visit book tv.org. you can also follow along behind the scenes on social media at book tv on twitter instagram and facebook. hello everyone. my name is jacob demlow.

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Germany , Georgia , Dayton , Ohio , South Dakota , Massachusetts , Washington , Boston , Hollywood , California , Columbus , Chicago , Illinois , Mississippi , East German , America , American , Sammy Davis Jr , Luther King , Trayvon Martin , Avery Devon , Davis Jr , Margaret Mitchell , Frank Sinatra , David Duvernay , Henry Fonda , Luther King Jr , Benjamin Mayes , Harry Belafonte , Eartha Kitt , Robert Vaughn , Lenny Kravitz , Sidney Poitier , Adam Clayton , David Garr , Elizabeth Taylor , Ivan Dixon , Lee Daniels , Jane Fonda , Sandra Bullock , Terrence Howard , William Styron , Elvis Presley , Ray Robinson , Martin Luther King , Benjamin Mays , Lee Marvin , Lena Horne , Los Angeles , John Ford , Whitehouse Lee Daniels , Michael Jackson , Oscar Michel , Charlie Parker , States Woodrow , James Baldwin ,