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OverviewWilliam Greaves is one of the most significant and compelling American filmmakers of the past century. Best known for his experimental film about its own making, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Greaves was an influential independent documentary filmmaker who produced, directed, shot, and edited more than a hundred films on a variety of social issues and on key African American figures ranging from Muhammad Ali to Ralph Bunche to Ida B. Wells. A multitalented artist, his career also included stints as a songwriter, a member of the Actors Studio, and, during the late 1960s, a producer and cohost of Black Journal, the first national television show focused on African American culture and politics. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of Greaves's remarkable career. It brings together a wide range of material, including a mix of incisive essays from critics and scholars, Greaves's own writings, an extensive meta-interview with Greaves, conversations with his wife and collaborator Louise Archambault Greaves and his son David, and a critical dossier on Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. Together, they illuminate Greaves's mission to use filmmaking as a tool for transforming the ways African Americans were perceived by others and the ways they saw themselves. This landmark book is an essential resource on Greaves's work and his influence on independent cinema and African-American culture. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Scott MacDonald , Jacqueline Najuma StewartPublisher: Columbia University Press Imprint: Columbia University Press ISBN: 9780231199582ISBN 10: 0231199589 Pages: 496 Publication Date: 01 June 2021 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface. William Greaves: Renaissance Man and Race Man Note on Style 1. William Greaves, Documentary Filmmaking, and the African-American Experience, by Adam Knee and Charles Musser 2. Meta-interview with William Greaves (an Audiobiography), by Scott MacDonald 3. Interview with Louise Archambault Greaves, by Scott MacDonald 4. Interview with David Greaves, by Scott MacDonald 5. The Efficacy of Acting, by Katherine Kinney 6. POEM/1965, by William Greaves 7. The First World Festival of Negro Arts: An Afro-American View, by William Greaves 8. Views Across the Atlantic: An American Vision of the First World Festival of Negro Arts, by Joseph L. Underwood 9. Sisters Inside Still a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class—Black Women Through the Lens of William Greaves, by Jacqueline Najuma Stewart 10. The Documentary as Sociodrama: William Greaves’s In the Company of Men (1969) and The Deep North (1988), by J. J. Murphy 11. Pugilism and Performance: William Greaves, Muhammad Ali, and the Making of The Fight, by Alexander Johnston 12. Black Journal: A Few Notes from the Executive Producer, by William Greaves 13. 100 Madison Avenues Will Be of No Help, by William Greaves 14. Black Journal: A Personal Look Backward, by St. Clair Bourne 15. “By, For and About”: Black Journal and the Rise of Multicultural Documentary in New York City, 1968–1975, by Charles Musser 16. William Greaves, Black Journal, and the Long Roots of Black Internationalism, by Celeste Day Moore 17. Government-Sponsored Film and Latinidad: Voice of La Raza (1971), by Laura Isabel Serna 18. Afterthoughts on the Black American Film Festival, by William Greaves 19. Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice: Personal Production Notes, by Michelle Duster Dossier on the Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Films 20. Proposal: Theatrical Short Subject, by William Greaves 21. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One Rediscovered: A Conversation with Dara Meyers-Kingsley, by Scott MacDonald 22. The Country in the City: Central Park as Metaphor in Jonas Mekas’s Walden and William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, by Scott MacDonald 23. “Just Another Word for Jazz”: The Signifying Auteur in William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (Excerpt), by Akiva Gottlieb 24. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2, by William Greaves 25. Some Concepts and Logistics in Shooting the Two Excerpts of Take 2½, by William Greaves 26. The Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Effect on Filmmaking Dynamics, by William Greaves 27. The Symbio Cinematic Environment: An Aesthetic yet Scientific Theory for the Film, by William Greaves 28. The Daring, Original, and Overlooked: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, by Richard Brody 29. Still No Answers, by Amy Taubin 30. “We’re Not Raping Bill”: Race and Gender Politics in Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Take 2½, by Joan Hawkins 31. Symbiopsychotaxiplasticity: Some Takes on William Greaves, by Franklin Cason, Jr., and Tsitsi Jaji 32. A Guy Who Could Think Around the Corner: Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, by Patricia R. Zimmermann 33. Revealing Greaves: Unhiding His Archive, by Shola Lynch Filmography Bibliography Contributors IndexReviewsDuring his long and immensely productive filmmaking career, William Greaves remained focused on educating audiences about African and African American contributions to culture and history, and about the ways in which this long and productive history has been ignored and distorted. His many and varied films, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 2000s, are a major achievement by an American master, an engagement with cinema long past ready for rediscovery. -- Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University Scott MacDonald and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart have broken new ground on a whole new field of film study with William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission. A rewarding adventure in itself, this is the first study of this scope on Greaves, an absolutely essential and kaleidoscopic figure of filmmaking and film thinking but one who until now has been hidden within his immense productivity. -- Terri Simone Francis, director of the Black Cinema Center/Archive, Indiana University Some artists are so far ahead of their time that the uniqueness of their vision goes unrecognized. So it was with William Greaves, a man of many talents, who created innovative forms to represent crucial issues. Here, finally, is the appreciation he has long deserved. -- Bill Nichols, author of <i>Introduction to Documentary</i>, third edition Through a thoughtfully curated selection of essays and other materials, the editors provide readers with a thorough understanding of the cultural context, aesthetic influences, and influence of William Greaves’s work. Following the director’s understanding of film as constantly in flux, the editors’ approach offers a beginning, or “take one,” to what they hope is a longer discussion of the director’s oeuvre. The result is the first detailed study of an important twentieth-century filmmaker that promises to engage scholars and students alike. -- Paula J. Massood, author of <i>Making a Promised Land: Harlem in Twentieth-Century Photography and Film</i> This book proves...Greaves has never been more alive. * Film Matters * Through a thoughtfully curated selection of essays and other materials, the editors provide readers with a thorough understanding of the cultural context, aesthetic influences, and influence of William Greaves's work. Following the director's understanding of film as constantly in flux, the editors' approach offers a beginning, or take one, to what they hope is a longer a discussion of the director's oeuvre. The result is the first detailed study of an important twentieth-century filmmaker that promises to engage scholars and students alike. -- Paula J. Massood, author of <i>Making a Promised Land: Harlem in Twentieth-Century Photography and Film</i> Author InformationScott MacDonald is director of cinema and media studies and professor of art history at Hamilton College. His books include The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place (2001), Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema (2015), and The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama (2019). Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and director of Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005) and the coeditor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (2015). She is the host of “Silent Sunday Nights” on Turner Classic Movies. 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