Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Culture and the Moving Image)

Rating:
Summary: A very ambitious book
Review: Guerrero writes a very ambitious book, attempting to outline the entire history of the representation of blackness in cinema. Although, the book is well researched, and for the most part clearly written, its revolutionary ambitions often outstrip complex readings of cultural texts.

Guerrero uses technical marxist language like hegemony, overdetermination, and ideology without fully integrating or explaining how they work within his polemic, inflating what is otherwise highly accessible prose--even to non-academic readers.

One further caveat: this is clearly a book concerned as much about overturning white "domination" of black representation, and prescribing alternative film "languages" as it is a book on film "History." Therefore, one should not read this book as film "History," but as "a history" of film...and let your reading Guerrero's book remind you that any other History, should also be regarded as "a history" as well.

Daniel Clausen

danielclausen dot com