We’re not the only ones who’ve noticed the explosion in black filmmaking since a black man won the White House. So has Cary Darling, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram film critic who has organized Culture, Class, and Style: The Politics of Image, a mini-festival of three movies showing this weekend at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Capturing the extraordinary variety and energy of films dealing with race in America and Britain is a task that no three movies could do by themselves, but the ones here are well-chosen.
Dave Chappelle’s Birthday Party is a 2006 documentary chronicling the huge concert staged by the comedian in Brooklyn that features Kanye West and John Legend collaborating on “Jesus Walks” and Dead Prez doing a galvanizing version of “It’s Bigger than Hip-Hop.” Amma Asante’s Belle mines the story of a real, if unheralded, black woman in 18th-century England and ties it to the currents of Western history. Justin Simien’s Dear White People locates tasty satire among the African-American students addressing the casual racism on their Ivy League campus. Run in conjunction with the museum’s Kehinde Wiley exhibit, this is a chance to see a big chunk of cinema’s present concentrated in one place.
Culture, Class, and Style: The Politics of Image runs Fri-Sat at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St, FW. Tickets are $7-9. Call 817-738-9215.
