MATERIALS
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-videos: CARMEN JONES,ISLAND IN THE SUN, and PORGY AND BESS.
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-books: Photographs in “BROWN SUGAR”, “BLACK HOLLYWOOD 1900 to 1970”
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1. Students will view CARMEN JONES and also portions of ISLAND IN THE SUN and PORGY AND BESS. Students will divide up into ensemble teams of four students. Each team will select short scenes (3 to 5 minutes) to transcribe. Each group will decide whether to act their selected scene from the transcription or to improvise that scene.
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2. Each team will decide how to utilize the songs in either CARMEN JONES or PORGY AND BESS. One team may decide to speak the songs as poetry, another may decide to sing them. These musicals also give us the opportunity to work with the school’s musical director. The school encourages team teaching and the musical director will give the students additional background material concerning the music.
IVAN DIXON / NOTHING BUT A MAN
NOTHING BUT A MAN, made in 1964, is on of the most vital portrayals of African Americans on film. Made by independent film-makers Robert Young and Michael Roemer, it is the story of a man and his efforts to earn a living, support his family and exist with a bit of dignity. This basic plot is complicated by the fact that the man in question, Duff Anderson, is black and will not abide by the traditionally inferior role assigned him in Alabama in 1964. Duff (Ivan Dixon) will either run away or fight back, but he will not accept inferior status. When the film opens, Duff is a footloose, carefree railroad section hand. He meets and falls in love with Josie Dawson (Abbey Lincoln), school teacher and daughter of a preacher. The generation gap between Duff and Reverend Dawson (Stanley Greene) is articulated here:
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Rev: It’s hard to know how to talk to the white folks these days.
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Duff: Yeah, well I guess it ain’t never been easy.
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Rev: These are changin times. Sit down, son.
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Duff: Thanks
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Rev: Well, it looks like we’ll be getting our new school.
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Duff: How come you ain’t sending them all to the same school?
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Rev: Well, we’ve got to go easy. We haven’t had any trouble in town for eight years and we’re not going to have any now.
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Duff: Can’t live without trouble can you.
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We see here two characters in conflict: a relationship of opposites. The dialogue is provocative.
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Rev: Use a little psychology. Make em think you’re going along and get what you want.
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Duff: It ain’t in me.
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Rev: You can be cocky now, boy, but it won’t last. You won’t make it. I just feel sorry for Josie. I knew it wouldn’t work out.
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Duff: Well at least she ain’t married to no white man’s “n . . . ” You been stoopin’ so long, Reverend, that you don’t even know how to stand up straight no more. You just half a man.
Before his marriage to Josie, Duff visits his father, Will Anderson (Julius Harris) who is ill, embittered, and old before his time. Will has become an alcoholic, and has retreated to the arms of Lee (Gloria Foster). Duff visits his little son, who is receiving minimal care in the slum of another city. We see the boy as an emotional victim of his illegitimate birth. Duff has a vision of “things past” and of “things yet to come.”
Duff and Josie are happy for a time after their marriage, but Duff’s unemployment changes all that. His white employer has fired him for attempting to organize fellow blacks in protest against unfair working conditions. When Josie offers to get a job, Duff’s masculinity is insulted. In a deeply felt scene, Duff approaches Josie under the dryer in a beauty salon. She tells him to take the money he needs from her handbag. Josie radiates a quiet strength and compassion in this astonishing scene.
The death of Will Anderson seems to bring an awakening for Duff. He collects his son and returns to Josie, from whom he has separated in a moment of despair.
All the characters in NOTHING BUT A MAN ring true. A death of spirit is mirrored in Will’s eyes. One sees love and warmth in Lee’s eyes. Reverend and Mrs. Dawson maintain the proper amount of aloofness, successfully indicating their fear of militancy. Josie demonstrates a soft spoken courage. Although she has been over-protected by her parents, she will chance a life with Duff. Early in the film Josie says, “Look Duff, most of the men I know, they’re kind of dead. When I met you the other day, I had the feeling that you’re different. That’s why I went out with you. I thought we might have something to say to each other.” Duff is indeed different; he has been compared to Malcolm X:
“The current low-budget movie, Nothing But a Man, is the story of another Malcolm, fictitious yet very real, who can be found all over this land. Duff, the main character, wasn’t looking for trouble or running away from it either. His unverbalized goal in this magnificent picture was to be “nothing but a man.” That’s what Malcolm X was all about. He was the symbol of black males who, though groping, have not yet found the answer to how they can be “nothing but a man,” which is, really more than enough. (7)