Steffany

As I type this, the tips of my fingers are quivering. Only just a little bit, as I am exhibiting other symptoms, too. A wise man once said, “We’re enraptured in the glow of love.” Who was that man, you ask? None other than Luther Vandross himself. A night spent perusing the Museum of Modern Art’s website to see if anything good was happening there, led me to discover a screening of Beasts of No Nation. I knew the movie was on Netflix, but I had yet to see it—partly due to a busy schedule and a commitment to watching House of Cards in my underwear.

I also noticed, in the information session, that there would be a post-screening interview with the director Cary Fukunaga. I love Cary Fukunaga, I mean yeah he’s attractive, but his work is also really good. I made my class watch Sin Nombre. I made my Mom watch True Detective, against her will. Every time I noticed my Mom’s attention divert from the screen, I’d give her the play by play. Including Matthew McConaughey’s existential crisis-related dialogue that spoke to my teenage soul. The only movie in his filmography I’ve yet to see is Jane Eyre. I plan on seeing it though, I’m coming for Cary Fukunaga but staying for Michael Fassbender.

I made the rainy trek to the MoMA, and immediately noticed I was the youngest person in the audience. There were a lot of middle aged men and women, seemingly trapped in the cycles of adulthood, but yet to let go of their filmmaking aspirations. As they shouldn’t. I’m naïve and doe eyed, yet to be knocked about by the world, but if we don’t have our dreams and aspirations, what is left of us? After finding a seat somewhere in the middle row, in the perfect place to take in such a “visceral” film, I nestled into my seat waiting for the movie to start.

The anticipation was overwhelming for my bladder, and I made a beeline to the bathroom. While in the stall, I heard two white women discussing the film. They kept making remarks about how sad it was, and how helpless they felt about their inability to save the children portrayed. I instantly became nervous. I had never seen the film and didn’t read reviews as I didn’t want them to cloud my judgement. So, I was preparing myself for the possibility of a white savior, and the kind of movie one that pervasively places white people front and center in narratives that have nothing to do with them.

My least favorite cinematic example of this trope is Freedom Writers. I still can’t understand why Erin Gruwell, the teacher in the film, chose the Holocaust as a way of finding a literary experience her students could relate to. So many, yet not enough, books are written about black & and brown people from multiple perspectives. The plight of Anne Frank isn’t the be all and end all of oppression, but I digress.

The movie was excellent. Excellent. Idris Elba gave his all, a lot of sweat, and a front and center view of his bald spot for the ART. Abraham Attah, the lead actor, carries the film throughout. However, I think credit should be given to the boy who played Agu’s sidekick, Striker. He had no lines but could effectively communicate pain via his eyes, all while maintaining a sense of childhood wonder. Especially, in the scene where they are in the field playing games amongst themselves. A smile spreads across the face of a boy who not long beforehand hacked a man to death.

After the screening, the curator ran through a few basic questions with Fukunaga. His answers were precise, blunt, and honest. Which made the chemistry with the interviewer weird. I felt the curator wanted to talk with Fukunaga as if they were old friends, but he was having none of that. “I take it this was a film of firsts, and you’d never shot in Africa before.” He was wrong. Fukunaga has been there, done that, and has the footage to back it up. Not only had he shot in Africa previously, he’d shot three films there. We were thanked for coming out and staying considering it not only rainy, but the movie was on Netflix.

Toward the end, people dispersed, as it was pretty late. I wanted to ask him how he got a movie without a white savior financed. With some convincing from my homegirl, we waited around. The guys in front of me got him to sign some obscure DVD of a show he was featured on years ago. I wasn’t sure if I could follow up such extreme but appreciated fandom. I went for it. I asked him the big question. He answered it, completely, while attentively looking into my eyes and then agreed to take a photo with me.

That man sucked my soul away. I joke, but in the process, he also reminded my why I had been dying to make films in the first place. To tell the stories of the “untouchables,” people who don’t matter unless we are the center of their universes. To tell that story, not from a distance that fits within the confines of our western influenced viewpoints, but close up. In the words of my father, “You got to tell it how it is!” There’s one scene where we see a group of white photojournalists in a van, taking pictures of the soldiers. The woman taking the photographs doesn’t know the children. The car drives away and in her hand she holds the stories of people she’s never even formally interacted with. We later learn that the media attention, skewed I’m sure, has actually left the soldiers worse off.

There in that scene, Fukunaga encapsulates why telling a story with an outsider approach can backfire cruelly. I know my perspective, my feelings, and my background are hardly ever touched on screen. I have to dig deep to find anything I can relate to in most media. Even the themes I find relatable tend to be universal. As in, woe is me I don’t know what I want from my life! Then, the film or show takes a turn and the protagonist uses social status or old family money to advance once they find their purpose. And I roll my eyes, mumble under my breath that I need to work on my screenplay.

I want to talk about my Nana’s journey from her small southern town smoldering in the ashes of the Civil War and Jim Crow to bustling NYC at 17 years old. My great grandfather finding himself and working odd jobs to buy zoot suits in ’20s Harlem. I’ve seen the pictures of family members sitting in a club, Cab Calloway nestled between them. I often imagine those images in my head, the dialogue they must’ve had, and the fear they must’ve felt.

I often end these diary entries with a declaration of some sorts, so I’ll end on this note. I am inching toward my purpose, day by day. However, more and more the need to tell stories seems to creep up inside me. I haven’t picked the medium I want to use to communicate these ideas. Maybe, I don’t need to. I can be a bit of everything. Actually, I don’t need to. If the interest is there, I will do it. I am going to make films. Eventually. ♦