Welcome P.O.U. family and lurkers! This week’s open thread will highlight African-American movie directors.
Kasi Lemmons (born Karen Lemmons on February 24, 1961) is an American film director and actress, most notable for her work on the films Eve’s Bayou, The Caveman’s Valentine and Talk to Me. Lemmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a poet/psychotherapist mother and a biology teacher father. Her passion for movies came at an early age, but becoming a director was her goal. “I wanted to do something more meaningful than going to auditions…” Lemmons is married to actor and director Vondie Curtis-Hall. They have a son and a daughter. Compared to how he works, she prefers the pressure of working on a set with the actors. As a director and a mother, Lemmons says that it gives her perspective. Her life outside of the movie set and Hollywood has kept her grounded.
In 1979, Lemmons made her acting debut in the television movie 11th Victim. She performed with the Boston Children’s Theater at a young age and later attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She then transferred to University of California, Los Angeles to major in history. However, she eventually left U.C.L.A. and enrolled in the film program at the New School for Social Research. As a young child, Lemmons got her first role on TV on a local soap opera called You Got a Right, a courtroom drama. She played the first and only black girl who integrated to an all-white school. She appeared in Gridlock’d, the debut feature film by her husband.
In 1997, Kasi directed the film Eve’s Bayou starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll, and Jurnee Smollett. Lemmons wrote a narrative that wove together family drama in the story of a ten-year old girl and her family. She created and directed the movie with an intentional use of universal significance. The movie is told by Eve, the main character who begins the movie in retrospective to the summer before. Lemmons’ friend gave some insight on the film, saying that it would be something really strong that grabs you at the beginning. The movie expresses certain themes and promotes an ambiance of mystery, sultry eroticism, and passion that transforms the characters throughout the movie. The film was not meant to be based on African American film work; however, it was meant to perceive human relationships in a different way. It attracted more white audiences than black. Lemmons expressed in an interview with the Washington Post that the movie was about “friendship”. The theme of following your dreams is prominent, and in the movie, the dreams are invested in another person. “
The casting for Eve’s Bayou was done by Lemmons as well. She specifically wanted Don Cheadle to be in her movie. She felt that Martin Sheen would fitting for the role of E.G. Sonderling, who was the head of the radio station. She also selected Mike Epps, Cedric the Entertainer, and Taraji Henson, the female lead, as actors for the movie. She had the opportunity to cast her husband, Vondie Curtis-Hall.
In 2001, she directed Samuel L. Jackson in the film The Caveman’s Valentine. The story line of this second film is about a homeless man whose effort was to solve a murder mystery. It involves “unexplained ambiguities surrounding him that include moth seraphs that emerge from dancers and forceful rays that are emitted from the Chrysler Building, home of his imaginary arch enemy.” Although Lemmons’ presence as a director was evident, this film was deemed a failure. Lemmons addresses the failure in an interview, saying that compared to Eve’s Bayou, the two movies are different and complicated they cannot be compared.
In 2002 Lemmons conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th Annual Academy Award show. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Lemmons would directThe Battle of Cloverfield, a supernatural thriller about a small Southern town that becomes haunted by its ghosts, from her own script for producer Laura Ziskin and Columbia Pictures. Lemmons directed the movie Talk to Me, released in 2007. The movie is about a radio personality, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist. The visual tone shifts over the course of the film with the subject matter and circumstances of the film’s times (during the 1960s through the 1970s and early 1980s) The film features signature American soul sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, including Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”, a song that plays in its entirety during a key period in Talk To Me.
The movie making industry was a challenge for Lemmons because she needed to show the fight in the 1960’s to make people change. Talk to Me portrays how important the meaning of friendship is. Lemmon’s movie direction of the movie captures the riots on the streets due to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the popular Johnny Carson show, intertwining both comedy and drama. It was truly a movie that encompasses the a part of revolutionary American history and how it changed America.
Lemmons has played Ardelia Mapp in The Silence of the Lambs and the interviewer Nina Blackburn in the mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat. She had a cameo appearance inSpike Lee’s School Daze during a montage of Half-Pint’s (Spike Lee) potential conquests. Lemmons won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Director in a Motion Picture for the film Talk to Me. Lemmons received a special first-time award, created just for her, from the National Board of Review and won the Director’s Achievement Award at the Ninth Annual Nortel Palm Springs Film Festival.
***All information courtesy of Wikipedia.org***