![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 I would like to dedicate this essay to my late mentor Angel Medina, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University.
2 Alejandro Portes and Ariel C. Armony explain the rapid acculturation of Cuban refugees: “The Cuban upper classes that landed in the city as a consequence of the successful Communist revolution on the island were not only accustomed to power back home, but, in addition, were quite familiar with American politics and culture” (The Global Edge, 9). Similarly, Miami “opened the city to the world and welcomed the flows of capital from Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Ecuador as each of these countries came, in turn, under the sway of populist regimes” (The Global Edge, 18).
3 In an interview Jenkins refers to Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien Three Times (2005) as a crucial film influencing the tripartite story structure of his own film. See “Interview. Moonlight becomes him: Barry Jenkins’s journey from a Miami housing project to the Oscars,” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/07/moonlight-barry-jenkins-director-interview (Accessed 7/2/2020), 1–5; 3.
4 Hood films may on occasion use R&B music, thereby creating a link with an older generation of Blaxploitation cinema. This link is suggested by Katherine Bausch’s essay (2013). However, hip-hop tends to be the predominant music style of the hood genre. See, for example, Boylorn (Citation2017).
5 Barry Jenkins explains this idiosyncratic use of hip-hop music: “It’s this Southern form of hip-hop called ‘chopped and screwed,’ where the voice is really deep and it’s really slowed down and lines are repeating. Hip-hop is usually moving at such a high bpm that you don't catch that not only is this poetry, but it’s really pained. If you chop and screw it, you allow all of that pain to come through” (44). In “Interview with Barry Jenkins by Nicolas Rapold,” film comment, Vol. 52, No. 5 (September-October, 2016), 44–45.
6 James Laxton, “Inside the Cinematography of Moonlight: The Images That Inspired James Laxton,” https://time.com/behind-the-visuals-of-moonlight/ (Accessed 7/2/2020), 2/8.
7 See “Interview. Moonlight becomes him. Barry Jenkins’s journey from a Miami housing project to the Oscars,” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/07/moonlight-barry-jenkins-director-interview/ (Accessed 7/2/2020), 3/5.
8 See “’Moonlight’ Director Barry Jenkins on Bringing ‘Art House to the Hood,’” Interview with Ashley Clark, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gqkdnq/moonlight-director-barry-jenkins-on-bringing-art-house-to-the-hood (Accessed 7/6/2020), 8/18.
9 Alejandro Portes and Ariel C. Armony, The Global Edge, 26.
10 “Another strategy in accentuating the film’s unique feeling is using a single Arri Alexa XT camera through the whole shoot. ‘The whole thing was one camera,’ says Laxton. ‘We never had two cameras actually.’” James Laxton, “Inside the Cinematography of Moonlight: The Images That Inspired James Laxton,” 5/8. “In the midst of this pivotal moment of self-discovery there’s a real awareness of the camera as the water is lapping against the lens” (Laxton, 4).
11 Marlon Riggs, Tongues Untied, documentary film, 1989.
12 See, for example, Jacquie Jones (1992). Jones notes that “Black women have been accused of being too attainable (whores), as in Jungle Fever, being incapable of parenting, as in Boyz n the Hood, causing unmendable rifts between Black men, as in New Jack City, and, in short, of destroying the Black community” (97).
13 “That pink light behind her in that scene and within the film generally helps to express another side of her,” says DP James Laxton. “I think the color pink can have a lot of associations but I think one of them can be beauty. On set it rounded out this character in this moment that is very dark and very intense. She’s yelling at her son. But it allowed us to understand that she’s a whole character as well.” James Laxton (2020, 6–7/8).
14 Jenkins answers the question of influence as follows: “Three Times by Hou Hsiao-hsien. That had a three-romance structure – a triptych. There is an homage to Three Times, the first story in
the pool hall. When Chiron first walks into the diner, we’re on the dolly, and then he sits at the counter, the camera pans, and we find André; André walks in the back of the kitchen, camera pans back, André comes down the little alley, and then we do the portraits. Because in the first story, Hou Hsiao-hsien is in the pool hall; camera’s perpendicular to the scene, just dollying back and forth, and just panning,” in film comment, Vol. 52, No. 5 (September-October, 2016), 45.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Delia Malia Konzett
Delia Malia Konzett is a Professor of English, Cinema Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is the author of Hollywood’s Hawaii: Race, Nation, and War (Rutgers UP, 2017) and the editor of Hollywood at the Intersection of Race and Identity (Rutgers UP, 2019).