An African-American Film Canon

...If one wants to consider modern life, one can look at Antwone Fisher, Boomerang, Claudine, Eve’s Bayou, One Night Stand, Paris Blues, Sidewalk Stories, To Sleep with Anger, and A Warm December.  If one wants to examine work issues, Blue Collar and Edge of the City and Red Violin and Matewan can be screened.  The arts, including the dangerous temptations surrounding the struggle to survive as an artist, form the tableaux for Basquiat, Bird, The Five Heartbeats, Lady Sings the Blues, and Round Midnight.  Romance and sex are the focus of Love Jones and Jumping the Broom.  Spiritual heritage is a theme of Daughters of the Dust.  It is now an exciting prospect to think about films featuring or by African-Americans, or focused on African-American subjects and themes, and their relation to standards of originality, creativity, depth, insight, formal structure, beauty, elegance, accessibility, durability, use as models, translatability, and entertainment value...Films that have been made by and star African-Americans that are worthy of being in a canon include: Antwone Fisher, Boomerang, Chameleon Street, Daughters of the Dust, Devil in a Blue Dress, Eve’s Bayou, Ganja and Hess, Get on the Bus, The Great Debaters, Jumping the Broom, Losing Ground, Sankofa, and Sidewalk Stories.   

(Excerpt: Notes on an African-American Canon in Cinema

On Sidewalk Stories, Daughters of the Dust, Eve’s Bayou and other films)