5 Black Films to Watch for Free on Criterion Channel
Portrait of Jason 1966, directed by Shirley Clarke
The Criterion Channel is currently highlighting films that focus on Black Lives, and have taken down the paywall on many black genre films. If you’re not a subscriber you can watch them for free (assuming it’s for a limited time only). While the world is still in Covid-19 quarantine and in mourning for black lives, consider this your starter pack to discovering and learning about black culture through an artful cinematic lens. These five films are masterful, unique and definitive of black storytelling.
Directed by Maya Angelou, Down in the Delta tells the story of a drug addicted mother (played by Alfre Woodard) who with the help of her mother moves her two kids from inner-city Chicago to a small rural Mississippi town. It is in the Mississippi Delta that she finds strength within herself and reconnects with her heritage.
The Watermelon Woman is a cult 90’s film that focuses on the black lesbian experience. This film debut by black female director Cheryl Dunye, also stars as the lead, Cheryl, a twenty-something lesbian filmmaker working on a documentary on black 1930’s film actress Fae Richards who is known as the Watermelon Woman. As she dives in deep into her documentary research on the forgotten star, Cheryl finds romance along the way with a white customer at the video store she works at.
This black and white silent film follows a street artist, played by the director himself Charles Lane, who rescues a baby after her father was murdered. Sidewalk Stories takes place in 1980’s New York City, the artist nicknamed as Little Tramp, goes in search for the baby’s mother while struggling to take care of the child. It’s a poignant portrayal of an artist’s life on the streets with bursts of physical comedy.
Black Girl is the 1966 film debut of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembéne and is widely recognized as one of the founding works of African cinema. The story focuses on a young Senegalese woman, Diouana, a nanny working in France, who realizes that her wealthy white employers expect her to be more of a servant. The film is a powerful portrait of tragic consequences of colonialism.
Shirley Clarke was an American white filmmaker whose work focused mainly on black people’s stories. She was a Park Avenue rich girl who escaped to downtown bohemia and inspired a new film movement that blurred non-fiction and fiction. In the film Portrait of Jason one night in December 1966, Clarke and her crew filmed for twelve straight hours inside her apartment in the Chelsea Hotel. The subject was Jason Holliday, a charismatic gay hustler and aspiring cabaret performer, who regaled the room with stories of the good and bad times.
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