STRANGE FRUIT
In Joel Katzs Bravo-style essay Strange Fruit, the sequined Billie Holiday, swaying on a 1957 Paris stage, unleashes the grievous moans of the titular lament adding the pathos of a further marginalized female observer to composer Abel Meeropols humanist outrage. Mining the songs associative richness, Katzs film works as jazz genealogy, Meeropol bio, Jewish-leftist puzzle piece, performance homage, and exegetic history of lynching. Strategically revealed details weave a matrix of radicalized classrooms, HUAC hearings, Southern marches, back-road terror, and socialist groundswell. In one moving scene, New York high schoolers analyze the lyrics parsing «blood on the leaves» as the visible effects of hate, and «blood at the root» as the ongoing nourishment of prejudice. (Laura Sinagra)
- Amiri Baraka
- Don Byron
- Billie Holiday
- Abbey Lincoln
- Pete Seeger
- Cassandra Wilson
- Joel Katz
- John Miglietta
- Thomas Torres
- Thomas Torres
- Joel Katz
- Don Byron
Johanna Samuel c/o Camera Planet Pictures 253 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10016, USA T 212 532 5554 johanna.samuel@cameraplanet.com
