[Marxism] Glover, Toussaint and the racist movie industry

[Aaron]

The question would be whether the racism involved is that of the 
potential movie producers, that of those who can pay to see movies 
(not many Haitians, for example, could pay even a couple of dollars 
for a ticket) or both! -- Aaron

Friday, July 25, 2008 - 08:30
AFP News Briefs List [URL below]

   Danny Glover's slavery film lacked "white heroes", producers said 
   by Rebecca Frasquet

US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian 
independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds 
for the movie because financiers complained there were no white 
heroes.

"Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are 
the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for 
a seminar on film.

"I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. 
I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers 
based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to," he said.

"The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them 
agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good 
in Japan.

"Somebody has to prove that to be a lie!", he said. "Maybe I'll have 
the chance to prove it."

"Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director, is about 
Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave 
and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, 
making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and 
become a republic.

The uprising he led was bloodily put down in 1802 by 20,000 soldiers 
dispatched to the Caribbean by Napoleon Bonaparte, who then 
re-established slavery after its ban by the leaders of the French 
Revolution.

Due to be shot in Venezuela early next year, the film will star Don 
Cheadle, Mos Def, Wesley Snipes and Angela Bassett.

"I wasn't the first one who had this idea," he said. "Sergey 
Eisenstein had the same idea, Anthony Quinn had this idea, Harry 
Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, and this goes on."

The "Lethal Weapon" co-star, just turned 62, finally raised 18 of the 
30 million dollars needed from a Venezuelan cultural body set up in 
2006 by his friend President Hugo Chavez to counter what he termed 
"the Hollywood film dictatorship".

Venezuelan filmmakers last year slammed the investment.

"It is Mr Glover who should be bringing dollars to Venezuela," the 
National Association of Film Makers and the Venezuelan Chamber of 
Film Producers said in an open letter.

Glover, a longtime activist, has supported Chavez's political 
revolution since he was first elected in 1998.

[See entire article at 
<http://www.france24.com/en/20080725-danny-glovers-slavery-film-lacked-white-heroes-producers-said>.]