Cult Midnight Movies: Discover the 37 Best Weird, Sleazy, Sexy, and Crazy Good Cinema Classics by Danny Peary

Author:Danny Peary [Peary, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Published: 2014-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

I find it peculiar that repertory theaters insisted on double-billing Black Orpheus (1959), the famous Brazilian film, and The Harder They Come, Jamaica’s stunning first feature. While they both take place in cities that attract American tourism—Rio de Janeiro and Kingston respectively—have all-black casts, a hero who dies in the end, and memorable musical scores,* Black Orpheus is an noncontroversial fairy tale held dear by the American (white) mass audience while the second is a hard-hitting, angry left-wing polemic that could have “cult” appeal only outside Jamaica. Just look at the films’ two heroes and you can see why Black Orpheus is more “popular” in America. Bruno Mello looks like a Greek god, and in his carnival garb he even dresses the part. He is well built, straight-shouldered, smart but not surly, polite, and handsome in the Sidney Poitier mold—and as it is with Poitier, the average white moviegoer would be delighted to invite him home for dinner. Jimmy Cliff (who was second only to Bob Marley in Jamaica’s reggae hierarchy) is a slightly built, gangly fellow who sports a goatee, stands stoop-shouldered with one knee bent, and struts as cockily as a “dirty” wrestler. He is charismatic, but his appeal is too sexual for most whites to feel comfortable with, especially when he sings: his eyes close, he dangles a cigarette in a half-closed hand that is constantly pumping, he sweats, his bottom lip curls under his teeth, he smacks his lips, he slowly shakes back and forth to the beat. As Ivan Martin, he wears loud clothes, slurs his words, speaks patois (the Rastafarian dialect), answers back, has a violent streak, carries weapons, is angry at being exploited and means to do something about it. No, he is not the hero that the white American middle class had been waiting for.

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