[Few pop culture
texts have exploded
into our collective consciousness more than Ryan
Coogler’s film adaptation of Black Panther. So this week I’ve
AmericanStudied this film phenomenon, leading up to this special weekend post
on Ryan Coogler’s three films to date!]
On three
striking choices that emblematize Coogler’s unique and vital American voice.
1)
Fruitvale Station
(2013): I wrote about Fruitvale’s
real-life subject Oscar
Grant in this post, and about showing the film in my First-year
Writing II class here. But while Michael B. Jordan’s complex, flawed, compelling,
and always human Oscar is of course the film’s center, to me Coogler’s most
important choice is to make Grant’s girlfriend Sophina
(played with just as much complex humanity by Melonie Diaz) a second
focal character and perspective on the film’s events. Along with Tessa Thompson’s character Bianca
in Creed, Sophina reflects a
filmmaker who, despite a clear focus on male protagonists, has always been
deeply interested in creating strong female characters without whom these
stories and films would quite simply not work. There’s a clear through-line
from these characters to the many Black
Panther female leads about whom I wrote in Thursday’s post.
2)
Creed (2015): I’ll
admit that I was a bit concerned when I first heard that Coogler’s follow-up to
Fruitvale would be a film in the Rocky franchise, which to my mind is an
example of a series that began with a thoughtful independent film and had
devolved into profoundly mindless popcorn entertainments. But Coogler, co-screenwriter
Aaron Covington, Michael B. Jordan, and Sylvester Stallone delivered a film
that very satisfyingly checks off all the
sports movie boxes while honoring the spirit and voice of that very first Rocky. By far my favorite aspect of Creed is its emphasis on family, and not
just in the obvious way that making Jordan’s protagonist Adonis Johnson the
illegitimate son of Apollo Creed would necessitate. Instead, without losing any
of its sports movie thrills Creed
manages to ask hard questions about family, race, class, and community. There’s
a clear through-line from that thematic richness in a blockbuster film to
Coogler’s ability to bring the same depth to Black Panther.
3)
Black
Panther (2018): All those through-lines have helped lead to Panther, and to the kinds of complex
elements and choices about which I’ve written all week. So here I’ll highlight
one other (SEMI-SPOILER-Y) choice that helps make Panther such a moving and multi-layered film: the many sequences in
which key characters are ceremonially buried in order to visit the spirit world
and their deceased fathers. Not only T’Challa but also Erik Killmonger gets the
chance to make this ceremonial, spiritual, and deeply personal journey, and in
each case the bravura sequences open up new sides to both these protagonists
and their fathers, as well as to key themes and questions in the film. If there’s
one thing that links all my points in this post, it’s Coogler’s ability to
bring thematic and perspectival depth to multiple characters and threads within
his films—and for that reason among many others I quite simply can’t wait for Creed
2, the recently
announced Black Panther sequel,
and wherever else Coogler’s career takes him and us.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Takes on the film or its contexts?
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