Kasi Lemmons is the rare filmmaker as comfortable in dreamworlds as histories. This week, Be Reel celebrates the groundbreaking director’s 60th trip around the sun by discussing three of Lemmons’ best-known films: “Eve’s Bayou” (1997), “Talk To Me” (2007), and “Harriet” (2019).
We’re thrilled to be joined by Christina Baker, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California, Merced and the author of “Kasi Lemmons: Interviews.” Baker has written extensively on Lemmons’ films and interviewed the director herself, crafting new theories about Lemmons’ expertise with symbolism and her commitment to storytelling via deep, complex character relationships.
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After cooling on the acting profession—following years of “best friend” roles in movies like “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Candyman”—Lemmons made American movie history in 1997 with “Eve’s Bayou.” In the lineage of Kathleen Collins and Julie Dash, Lemmons became one of the first Black women to direct a Hollywood film. Lauded by critics at the time (Roger Ebert’s favorite of 1997), “Eve’s Bayou” still didn’t get the credit it deserved from awards bodies and canonizers.
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Today, Lemmons is primed for more long-deserved success. Her 2019 Harriet Tubman biopic netted her biggest box office success, while “Eve’s Bayou” wins new fans and reappraisals with every passing year. Her films in between, like “Talk To Me” and “The Caveman’s Valentine” are no less intriguing, demonstrating Lemmons’ versatility as a genre-agnostic dramatist with, we hope, decades more stories to tell.
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