#1082a: RIGGS, Marlon: Ethnic Notions (1986)

RIGGS, Marlon (United States/Canada)
Ethnic Notions (1986)
Spine #1082a
Blu-ray


Director/Writer


Marlon Riggs was 29 when he directed Ethnic Notions.

Marlon Riggs brings viewers face-to-face with the insidious images that have shaped America's racial mythologies, in his first major work, a brilliant and disturbing deconstruction of the ways in which anti-Black stereotypes have permeated nearly every aspect of popular culture. Through razor-sharp historical analysis including interviews with historians and folklore scholars, powerfully deployed imagery, and narration by actor Esther Rolle, Ethnic Nations illuminates, with devastating clarity, how dehumanizing caricatures of Black people -- seen everywhere from children's books to films to household products -- have been used to uphold white supremacy and to justify slavery, segregation, and the continuing oppression of African Americans. In its refusal to look away from racism's ugliest manifestations, this Emmy-winning documentary has become an essential text for understanding the origins of American racial violence.

58 minutes
Color
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2021
The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic K. Austin Collins.

Commentary

None.

Four programs

Featuring filmmaker and editor Christiane Badgley: performers Brian Freeman, Reginald T. Jackson, and Bill T. Jones: filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans: poet Jericho Brown: film and media scholar Racquel Gates: and sociologist Herman Gray.

Excerpts

From a 1992 interview with director Riggs.

Brief introductions

By Riggs to Tongues United and Color Adjustment.

Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues (1981)

Riggs’s graduate thesis film.

Introduction

To Riggs from 2020 featuring filmmakers Vivian Kleiman and Shikeith, and Ashley Clark, curatorial director of the Criterion Collection.

I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs (1996)

A documentary by Karen Everett.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =



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