“The Old South, for him, embodied the capacity for feeling, blood loyalty, tradition, instinct, simple enjoyments….[I]t stood in opposition to mercantile civilization, hustle and bustle, and cold, calculating intellectuality.” — Phillip Lopate, “Shining Bright”
Wendy Brenner, Kevin Brockmeier, and others detail “Thirteen Essential Southern Documentaries.” Essays by Gerald Early, Phillip Lopate, and Ray McKinnon. An interview with Charles Burnett by Dennis Lim. Iconic photos of Burt Reynolds, Sidney Poitier, and Tony Curtis.
Guest Editor’s Box
THE WHOLE BRIGHT MESS
by Derek Jenkins
Gone Off Up North
MAD ABOUT MADEA
by Roy Blount, Jr.
Local Fare
PRESSING DUCK, PRESSING FLESH
by John T. Edge
On Location
BULLETS AND BODIES
by William Caverlee
On Actors
FROM HOOFER TO GUMSHOE
by Jack Pendarvis
On Actors
THE IDEAL IMPOSTER
by Tom Carson
On Actors
HILLBILLY HEROINE
by Cintra Wilson
On Directors
WHO IS JOHN HUSTON?
by Joseph McBride
Dealer’s Choice
ROBERT ALTMAN (1925–2006)
by Hal Crowther
Southern Scenes
Burt Reynolds, 1976
SHINING BRIGHT
by Phillip Lopate
John Ford’s vision of the South.
DANCING IN THE DARK
by Gerald Early
Race, sex, the South, and exploitative cinema.
HOW TO ACT
by Ray McKinnon
It ain't brain surgery but . . .
THE OA MOVIE GUIDE
with Jack Pendarvis, M. Thomas Inge, Derek Jenkins, Thomas Doherty, Noel Murray, Matthew H. Bernstein, Francince Prose, John Cline, Scott Van Doviak, Jim Ridley, and Donna Bowman
PERSONAL FILMMAKER
An interview with Charles Burnett
by Dennis Lim
A poet of American cinema whose thirty-year career began with a no-budget, gritty 16mm masterpiece.
THIRTEEN ESSENTIAL SOUTHERN DOCUMENTARIES, PART II
Oxford American editors & contributors on "What you should be watching"
Cover: Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones (1958), Courtesy of the United Artists/Photofest