Coonskin (film)
Coonskin | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ralph Bakshi |
Written by | Ralph Bakshi |
Based on | Uncle Remus |
Produced by | Albert S. Ruddy |
Starring | Barry White Charles Gordone Philip Thomas Scatman Crothers |
Cinematography | William A. Fraker |
Edited by | Donald W. Ernst |
Music by | Chico Hamilton |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Bryanston Distributing Company |
Release date |
|
Running time | 83 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.6 million |
Coonskin is a 1975 American
Originally produced under the titles Harlem Nights and Coonskin No More... at Paramount Pictures, Coonskin encountered controversy before its original theatrical release when the Congress of Racial Equality accused the film of being racist. When the film was released, Bryanston gave it limited distribution and it initially received mixed reviews. Later re-released under the titles Bustin' Out and Street Fight, Coonskin has since been re-appraised, recontextualizing the film as the condemnation of racism that the director intended, rather than a product of a racist imagination, as its detractors had claimed. A New York Times review said, "Coonskin could be Ralph Bakshi's masterpiece."[2] Bakshi has stated that he considers Coonskin to be his best film.[3]
Plot
In a small town in Oklahoma, The local Preacher (Charles Gordone) takes a prayer, to the kids, then gives them a tour. When he gets there, he meets Sampson (Barry White) and plans to bust out their friend Randy (Philip Michael Thomas) from prison. As they rush to the prison, the two are stopped by a woman, who gives Sampson the price. Meanwhile, Randy and another cellmate named Pappy (Scatman Crothers) escape from inside the prison and wait for Sampson and the Preacher to help them get out. While waiting for them, Randy unwillingly listens to Pappy tell a story about three guys that resemble Randy and his friends. Pappy's story is told in animation set against live-action background photos and footage.
Rabbit first goes up against Managan (
Rabbit's next target is Sonny (
Under the advisement of Fox, Bear becomes an undefeated heavy weight boxer for the Mafia. Soon an invitation was sent to Rabbit to challenge a fighter against Bear. During the fight at the Godfather's lair, Rabbit sets up a melting imitation of himself made out of
The live-action story ends with Randy and Pappy escaping from the prison with the aid of Sampson and the Preacher who finally arrive while being shot at by various white cops, but managing to make it out alive.
The main plot of the film is interspersed with animated vignettes depicting a white, blonde, large-breasted "Miss America" (Jesse Welles) who is imagined by Rabbit as a personification of the United States. In each of these short scenes, she seduces a black man (meant to depict the African-American populace), only to instead beat or kill him. In the final act of the film, the real Miss America appears as a patron in Rabbit's bar and an ardent supporter of his (heavily implied to have a crush on him).
Cast
- Philip Michael Thomas as Randy
- Barry White as Sampson
- Charles Gordone as Preacherman
- Scatman Crothers as Pappy
Voices
- Philip Michael Thomas as Brother Rabbit
- Barry White as Brother Bear
- Charles Gordone as Preacher Fox
- Scatman Crothers as Old Man Bone / Additional Voices
- Danny Rees as Mario the Clown
- Buddy Douglas as Referee
- Jim Moore as The Mime
- Al Lewis as The Godfather
- Richard Paulas Sonny
- Frank de Kova as Managan / Ruby
- Ralph Bakshi as Cop with Megaphone
- Theodore Wilson and Scatman Crothers as Minstrel
- Jesse Welles as Marrigold / Miss America[a]
Production
During the production of Heavy Traffic, filmmaker Ralph Bakshi met and developed an instant friendship with producer Albert S. Ruddy during a screening of The Godfather, and pitched Harlem Nights, a satirical adaptation of the Uncle Remus storybook, to Ruddy.[3] In 1973, production of Harlem Nights began,[2][5] with Paramount Pictures (where Bakshi once worked as the head of its cartoon studio) originally attached to distribute the film.[2][3] Bakshi hired several black animators to work on Harlem Nights, including graffiti artists, at a time when black animators were not widely employed by major animation studios.[2][6] Production concluded in the same year.[6] During production, the film went under several titles, including Harlem Days[6] and Coonskin No More...[7]
Coonskin uses a variety of racist
In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, Arthur Knight wrote "Coonskin is not anti-black. Nor is it anti-Jewish, anti-Italian, or anti-American, all of whom fall prey to Bakshi's wicked caricaturist's pen as intensely as any of the blacks in his movie. What Bakshi is against, as this film makes abundantly clear, is the cheats, the rip-off artists, the hypocrites, the phonies, the con men, and the organized criminals of this world, regardless of race, color, or creed."[2] The film is most critical in its portrayal of the Mafia. According to Bakshi, "I was incensed at all the hero worship of those guys in The Godfather; Pacino and Caan did such a great job of making you like them. [...] One thing that stunned me about The Godfather movie: here's a mother who gives birth to children, and her husband essentially gets all her sons killed. In Coonskin, she gets her revenge, but also gets shot. She turns into a butterfly and gets crushed. [...] These [Mafia] guys don't give you any room."[9]
The live-action sequences feature singers Barry White and Scatman Crothers, actor and playwright Charles Gordone, and actors Philip Michael Thomas, Danny Rees, and Buddy Douglas. Thomas, Gordone, and White also provide the voices of the film's main animated characters. In the film's ending credits, the actors were only credited for their live-action roles, and all voice actors who did not appear in the live-action sequences were left uncredited. Among the voices featured in the film was Al Lewis, best known for appearing as Grandpa on The Munsters.[9][10] Bakshi also worked with Gordone on the film Heavy Traffic,[11] and worked with Thomas again on the film Hey Good Lookin'.[6] The film's opening credits feature a long take of Scatman Crothers performing a song on vocals and guitar called "Coonskin No More".[12]
Coonskin uses a variety of different styles of artwork, filmmaking and storytelling techniques. Film critic
Release
When the film was finished, a showing was planned at the Museum of Modern Art.[2] However, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) surrounded the building, in a protest led by Elaine Parker. Gregg Kilday of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Larry Kardish, a museum staff member, and Kardish recalled that "About halfway into the film about ten members of CORE showed up. They walked up and down the aisles and were very belligerent. In my estimation they were determined not to like the film. Apparently some of their friends had read the script of the movie and in their belief it was detrimental to the image of blacks [...] The question-and-answer session with Bakshi that followed quickly collapsed into the chaos of a shouting match."[2] Animation historian Jerry Beck did not recall any disturbance during the screening, but said there were racist catcalls during the question-and-answer session, and Bakshi's talk was cut short. "It wasn't much of a madhouse, but it was kind of wild for the Museum of Modern Art."[2]
Following the showing, the Paramount Building in New York City was picketed by CORE. Elaine Parker, chairman of the Harlem chapter of CORE, had spoken out against the film in January 1975. She told Variety that the film "depicts us as slaves, hustlers and whores. It's a racist film to me, and very insulting." The Los Angeles chapter of CORE demanded that Paramount not release the film, claiming that it was "highly objectionable to the black community."[2] The NAACP had written a letter describing the film as a difficult satire, but supported it.[4]
New Distributor
With Paramount's permission, Bakshi and Ruddy were contractually released, and the Bryanston Distributing Company was made as the new distributor for the film.[2][4] Ironically, two weeks after the film opened, the distributor went bankrupt.[2][4] According to a May 1975 issue of The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Gage was hired to re-record some of Barry White's voice tracks, in order to remove "racist references and vulgarity."[2] Coonskin was given limited distribution, advertised as a blaxploitation film. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the film:
Coonskin is said by its director to be about blacks and for whites, and by its ads to be for blacks and against whites. Its title was originally intended to break through racial stereotypes by its bluntness, but now the ads say the hero and his pals are out "to get the Man to stop calling them coonskin." The movie's original distributor, Paramount, dropped it after pressure from black groups. Now it's being sold by Bryanston as an attack on the system. [...] Coonskin is provocative, original and deserves better than being sold as the very thing it's not.[13]
In a 1982 article published in
Original Paramount cut discovery
In 2023, the Italian YouTuber 151eg, in an attempt to rediscover the lost Italian dubbing of the film, contacted a private collector and purchased a VHS tape. The VHS tape contained the original version of the film, with an additional 20 minutes compared to the commonly available version.[14] It was, in fact, the Paramount cut, which had never been released due to protests. It is possible to watch it on the 151eg channel or on archive.org.[15]
Critical response
Initial reviews of the film were mixed. Playboy said of the film, "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together."[2] A review published in The Village Voice called the film "the product of a crippled hand and a paralyzed mind."[2] Arthur Cooper wrote in Newsweek, "[Bakshi] doesn't have much affection for man or woman kind—black or white."[2] Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper), and elsewhere, but the film died at the box office.[2] Richard Eder of The New York Times wrote, "[Coonskin] could be his masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined—to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence."[2] Variety called the film a "brutal satire from the streets. Not for all tastes [...] not avant-garde. [...] The target audience is youth who read comics in the undergrounds."[2] A reviewer for The Los Angeles Herald Examiner wrote "Certainly, it will outrage some and indeed it's not Disney. I liked it. The dialogue it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy."[2]
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote "Coonskin is a flawed but fierce little work of art, at a high level of imaginative energy and with some touches of brilliance".[16]
Legacy
Coonskin was later re-released under the title Bustin' Out, but it was not a success.
In 2010,
See also
Notes
- ^ The chuckles and vocal dialogue in Wizards with "Ellinore" sound similar to those for "Miss America" (and "Marrigold") in Coonskin.
References
- ^ "Coonskin | Bakshi productions, Inc". Bakshi Film Studios.
- ^ ISBN 0-7864-0395-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7893-1684-4.
- ^ ISBN 0-312-13192-5.
- ISBN 978-0-306-80918-7.
- ^ a b c d Best, Tony. "Inner City Hues". Wax Poetics. Archived from the original on January 19, 2011. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ISBN 1-900486-21-0.
- ISBN 978-0-7893-1684-4.
- ^ San Jose Metro. Retrieved March 25, 2007.
- ^ Busack, Richard von. "Monstrosious! Rudy Ray Moore and Coonskin at Cinequest: the black hero of the 1970s on the fringe". San Jose Metro. Retrieved March 25, 2007.
- ^ "Charles Gordone Filmography". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2015. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved June 10, 2007.
- CraveOnline. Archived from the originalon January 19, 2013.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1975). "Review of Coonskin". Sun-Times. Chicago. Archived from the original on September 12, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2007.
- ^ "Ho Rubato Un Film". YouTube.
- ^ "COONSKIN - Film completo in ITALIANO". YouTube.
- ^ Kauffmann, Stanley (1979). Before My Eyes Film Criticism & Comment. Harper & Row Publishers. p. 168.
- ^ "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time". Online Film Critics Society. March 4, 2003. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
- ^ ISBN 0-394-54684-9. New York City: Alfred A. Knopf. Accessed March 17, 2008.
- ^ "Disc News: Coonskin Finally Coming To DVD". Inside Pulse. August 4, 2010. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
- ^ "Video: Trickle Dickle Down, Ralph Bakshi's New Short". Bleeding Cool. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
External links
- Coonskin at IMDb
- Coonskin at AllMovie
- Coonskin at Rotten Tomatoes
- Coonskin at the TCM Movie Database