This week, Facets Multi-Media, where I work, is hosting the Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival, one of many festivals and series that our intrepid programmer, Charles Coleman, books each year.  Only a handful of venues around Chicago — or, around the country for that matter — can boast such diverse programming. Last Friday, I watched a documentary from Nigeria titled Glorious Exit, and this coming Tuesday, I plan to stay after work to catch a film about Haitian novelist Jacques Roumain.  Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to see an American independent film as part of the festival.  A small-scale drama with a big-name cast, Gospel Hill is struggling to find bookings in the theaters — any theater.

                Gospel Hill features an ensemble cast of major Hollywood faces, including Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, Nia Long, and Julia Stiles, veteran character actors Giancarlo Esposito, Adam Baldwin, and Tom Bower, and newcomers Taylor Kitsch and RZA. Set in the South, the story involves the legacy of a civil rights leader murdered in 1968 and his impact on his small hometown of Julia, South Carolina. Like many small towns across America, Julia is economically depressed because local industries have dried up or moved away. The townspeople are divided over whether to destroy a historical district for the sake of a new development, or to hang onto land that has been owned by local families for a hundred years. Will it really bring jobs to the town, or will residents sacrifice their history for nothing as out-of-state developers take advantage of the low real estate prices?

                The idea that a film with a big-name cast and a timely story can’t get shown in regular theaters is indicative of the sorry state of the American film industry today. I spoke about the situation with Reinaldo Barroso-Spech, one of the organizers of the African Diaspora Film Festival and co-owner of ArtMattan Productions, a distributor of Afrocentric films and DVDs. Apparently, 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights to the film, and the studio is determined to send it straight to DVD, while director Giancarlo Esposito (also one of the film’s stars) is trying to convince them to give it some exposure in theaters. I assume Fox feels that the film’s older cast, serious subject matter, and small-town, small-scale drama won’t appeal to the core demographic of movie-goers, which are teenage males. Apparently, Fox and the other major studios haven’t figured out a way to market to other groups who still go to the movies.  Barroso-Spech first saw the film at Cannes and felt it deserved a better chance than Fox was willing to give it. He included it as part of the New York African Diaspora Film Festival last winter, and he was hoping the film would do well over the weekend in Chicago.  Gospel Hill has also been hitting the small festival circuit fairly hard, so if it pops up in a festival in your area, make a point to see it.

DIRECTOR GIANCARLO ESPOSITO

                Gospel Hill has its flaws, but it is the type of indie filmmaking that showcases true ensemble acting and socially conscious subject matter — two characteristics that have all but disappeared from studio productions. The film’s narrative structure, subject matter, and ensemble approach to acting reminded me of some of John Sayles’s films such as City of Hope, Sunshine State, or his last film, Honeydripper, which suffered from the same lack of industry support.  Gospel Hill does not have Sayles’s tight control over the structure or performances, but, like some of his films, it has a meandering storyline in which the same events impact a variety of characters in different ways. When the screenplay finally pulls together all the characters at the end for a resolution, I appreciate the craftsmanship involved in making an ambling story come full circle.

                The storyline of Gospel Hill is structured around two events important to Julia, South Carolina — a celebration of Paul Malcolm, a civil rights leader who was shot down 40 years earlier, and an upcoming city council meeting to determine whether to sell the historical district known as Gospel Hill to developers who will turn it into a golf course.  The first event represents the town’s rich past as a center for the civil rights movement, while the latter points it toward an uncertain future. Julia’s history and identity are bound up with its famous past, but it is also in dire need of new industries and jobs. Learning to deal with the past without either living in it or forgetting it is a central theme in the film — not only for the town but for its residents, too.

DANNY GLOVER AS JOHN MALCOLM

                The cast of recognizable faces, which Mr. Barroso-Spech called “boutique casting,” is the film’s most appealing feature. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of assassinated civil rights leader Paul Malcolm. The tragedy of losing his father first to the limelight and then to an assassin’s bullet has turned John against civil rights activism, and he hides from his identity as the great man’s son — visually represented in the blocking of Glover, who is often shown under the hood of a car or truck. Glover’s quiet, low-key portrayal of the character is rich in nuance. John often stands straight and still, moving very little and speaking only a few lines of dialogue, but close-ups of Glover’s expressive face and the deliberate nature of the body language reveal all we need to know about the character. The characterization is not in the pages of the script, but it’s in Glover’s performance. His character contrasts greatly with that of his wife, Sarah, played by Angela Bassett with energy and assertiveness. As opposed to John, Sarah, a local schoolteacher, pursues causes with passion and conviction, and she is against the new development. Bassett’s character is constantly moving, even when she is sitting, and she speaks with determination and anger. At times, Sarah becomes tiresome, because she is always at odds with someone, but the point is to see the characters in contrast to each other. Sarah and John represent two perspectives in the aftermath of the civil rights era — those who still actively fight for a better world vs. those who passively accept that we live an unjust world that will not change.  

ANGELA BASSETT AS SARAH MALCOLM

                Pairing up the other characters also helps to understand what they represent. Tom Bower plays Jack Herrod, a former sheriff who let Paul Malcolm’s killer get away with murder under pressure from the town’s power-brokers. Racist in his dealings with local African Americans, Herrod is full of hate because he blames others for his lot in life; his African American counterpart is Luther, who is fired from his job by Herrod for being habitually late. Like Herrod, he is filled with bitter hate and blames whites for life’s injustices, including losing a leg in the Iraqi War. The tension between the two when they are onscreen together foretells violence, but considering them as a pair who have much in common makes the resolution to their story logical and meaningful. Likewise, Herrod’s sons, Carl and Joel, are opposite in temperate and looks. Carl is a tall, unattractive, cynical, and hardened lawyer, who sleeps with married women, while Joel is short, handsome, innocent, and sensitive.  Yet, it is Carl’s personality that is better suited to make a breakthrough with his father and an impact on stopping the development.

                For me, the film’s best feature was its authentic depiction of the South, especially the small-town working-class South.  It not only looked and sounded like the South, but the film captured the racial complexities of contemporary life in a small Southern town. The whites are not stereotyped rednecks like you see in many films or television episodes depicting racial issues, yet some of them are ugly characters that do and say ugly things. The African American characters are neither victims nor saints, and some of the young black characters seem unaware of the importance of Paul Malcolm and the sacrifices made by those like him for their benefit.  In the scenes between whites and blacks, there is often a slight tension, even between characters who are helping each other or on the same side. Yet, there is also an understanding that survival (personal and economic) makes each race dependent on the other. One of my favorite scenes occurs in a local bar, where whites line-dance to a country song, then after it is over, African Americans dance to rap. A few dance to both types of music. In the South, blacks and whites are both separated and bound together by history and culture in a way that Northerners don’t know or understand.

NEWCOMER TAYLOR KITSCH AS JOEL

                In one of the few reviews of Gospel Hill, the reviewer called the pace of the film slow. It’s not slow; the action flows like the pace of life in the South — unhurried, even leisurely. Esposito effectively establishes a sense of time and history during the opening credits when he intercuts black and white news footage of the past with black and white shots of the fictional Paul Malcolm with color documentary-style footage of the South Carolina towns where the film was shot. The area’s civil rights history, which is part of the story, is recalled but a way of life is also captured in which the passing of time is measured by the intensity of the sun’s heat. Likewise, the closing credits features a montage of still shots of actual residents of Fort Mill and York, South Carolina, sitting on their front porches, where much of life unfolds in the South. Instead of traffic noises, birds, locusts, and crickets can be often heard on the soundtrack, a peaceful sound to anyone who has ever lived in the country.  I appreciated the authentic portrait of regional America that was accomplished through editing, sound, and cinematography. Too often indie films are self-indulgent showcases for acting that is so low key, it’s dull, or for scripts that are so overwritten that they are all talk and no technique. Gospel Hill has its weaknesses, but Esposito has accomplished a lot on a small budget.

                Gospel Hill played as part of the African Diaspora Film Festival at Facets on both Saturday and Sunday. Aside from a couple of brief mentions as an event around town, the film and the festival was ignored by Chicago’s legion of film reviewers. I am sure the lack of critical attention will not help Esposito’s drive to get it released theatrically. I guess the critics were too busy falling all over themselves writing reviews and feature stories on Year One, the latest adolescent comedy with badly timed jokes about bodily functions.