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The Resource Ralph Ellison : an American journey

Ralph Ellison : an American journey

Narrator
Contributor
Summary
Ralph Ellison: an American journey is the first documentary on one of the most gifted and intellectually provocative authors of modern American literature. It establishes Ellison as a central figure in contemporary debates over art, politics, race and nationhood. Narrated by Andre Braugher, the film brilliantly presents the first scenes ever filmed from Ellison's landmark novel, Invisible man. The extended Film version is nothing less than a virtual forum on Ralph Ellison and the ideas he embraced. It features fascinating discussion of African American identity, The black arts movement, Ellison's blues based interpretation of Black survival, Toni Morrison reading from Ellison's second novel, and much more. Some of the best minds in literary and cultural criticism -- Baraka and Crouch, Cornel West, Clyde Taylor, Robert O'Meally and many others, debate Ellison's richly symbolic characters and narrative trajectories. Ralph Ellison: an American journey locates the origins of Ralph Ellison's artistic and intellectual aspirations in his upwardly mobile family who left the South for the relative racial fluidity of the newly ratified state of Oklahoma and named their son after poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison attended Tuskegee Institute on a music scholarship, but he found himself increasingly drawn to modernist literature and writing. He would later fuse elements of Eliot, Hemingway and Black folklore in the dizzying style of the jazz that he played and loved. After Ellison moved to New York, he associated with the Federal Writers Project and became a protegee of Richard Wright, who encouraged him to choose writing over music. After publishing short stories, articles and reviews, Ellison typed the words I am an invisible man and began the seven-year journey that paid off in his masterpiece. This richly symbolic, ironic, and often surreal novel describes a quest much like Ellison's own to invent an identity independent of that imposed by society. Winner of the 1953 National Book Award, Invisible Man thrust Ellison not only into prominence but also into the vortex of the battles raging over the role of literature and art in politics, and specifically over Ellison's rejection of the "protest novel." Black Arts activists of the 1960s and 1970s condemned Ellison's integrationist stance and "disengaged voice." In Ralph Ellison: an American journey, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch, Terrance Rafferty and other cultural critics, reconstruct those debates and discuss the roles and responsibilities of a Negro writer." Ellison's responses to his critics are collected in the essays in Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory. He held that American Blacks and whites, whether they know it or not, are entwined in building a common national experience. Perhaps it was the difficulty of achieving such a synthesis that led to Ellison's famous struggle on his never completed second novel, Juneteenth, published only after his death. In the film, friends and critics discuss the book, but it's a poignant reading by Toni Morrison that brings the novel to startling life. Ralph Ellison: an American Journey explores the many ways one of our most important writers and thinkers grappled with the question: "What does it mean to be an American?"
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 87 min.)
Note
Title from title frames
Link
Instance
Label
Ralph Ellison : an American journey
Title
Ralph Ellison
Title remainder
an American journey
Contributor
Contributor
Narrator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Ralph Ellison: an American journey is the first documentary on one of the most gifted and intellectually provocative authors of modern American literature. It establishes Ellison as a central figure in contemporary debates over art, politics, race and nationhood. Narrated by Andre Braugher, the film brilliantly presents the first scenes ever filmed from Ellison's landmark novel, Invisible man. The extended Film version is nothing less than a virtual forum on Ralph Ellison and the ideas he embraced. It features fascinating discussion of African American identity, The black arts movement, Ellison's blues based interpretation of Black survival, Toni Morrison reading from Ellison's second novel, and much more. Some of the best minds in literary and cultural criticism -- Baraka and Crouch, Cornel West, Clyde Taylor, Robert O'Meally and many others, debate Ellison's richly symbolic characters and narrative trajectories. Ralph Ellison: an American journey locates the origins of Ralph Ellison's artistic and intellectual aspirations in his upwardly mobile family who left the South for the relative racial fluidity of the newly ratified state of Oklahoma and named their son after poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison attended Tuskegee Institute on a music scholarship, but he found himself increasingly drawn to modernist literature and writing. He would later fuse elements of Eliot, Hemingway and Black folklore in the dizzying style of the jazz that he played and loved. After Ellison moved to New York, he associated with the Federal Writers Project and became a protegee of Richard Wright, who encouraged him to choose writing over music. After publishing short stories, articles and reviews, Ellison typed the words I am an invisible man and began the seven-year journey that paid off in his masterpiece. This richly symbolic, ironic, and often surreal novel describes a quest much like Ellison's own to invent an identity independent of that imposed by society. Winner of the 1953 National Book Award, Invisible Man thrust Ellison not only into prominence but also into the vortex of the battles raging over the role of literature and art in politics, and specifically over Ellison's rejection of the "protest novel." Black Arts activists of the 1960s and 1970s condemned Ellison's integrationist stance and "disengaged voice." In Ralph Ellison: an American journey, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch, Terrance Rafferty and other cultural critics, reconstruct those debates and discuss the roles and responsibilities of a Negro writer." Ellison's responses to his critics are collected in the essays in Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory. He held that American Blacks and whites, whether they know it or not, are entwined in building a common national experience. Perhaps it was the difficulty of achieving such a synthesis that led to Ellison's famous struggle on his never completed second novel, Juneteenth, published only after his death. In the film, friends and critics discuss the book, but it's a poignant reading by Toni Morrison that brings the novel to startling life. Ralph Ellison: an American Journey explores the many ways one of our most important writers and thinkers grappled with the question: "What does it mean to be an American?"
Cataloging source
UtOrBLW
Characteristic
videorecording
Date time place
Originally produced by California Newsreel in 2002
http://library.link/vocab/relatedWorkOrContributorName
  • Braugher, Andre
  • West, Cornel
  • Baraka, Amiri
  • Crouch, Stanley
  • Rafferty, Terrance
  • Morrison, Toni
  • Kanopy (Firm)
Runtime
86
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Ellison, Ralph
  • Novelists, American
  • African American novelists
  • Documentary films
Technique
live action
Label
Ralph Ellison : an American journey
Link
Instantiates
Publication
Note
Title from title frames
Antecedent source
unknown
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Content category
two-dimensional moving image
Content type code
  • tdi
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 87 min.)
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Medium for sound
other
Other physical details
digital, .flv file, sound
Publisher number
1062803
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
sound
Sound on medium or separate
sound on medium
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
System control number
(OCoLC)897768011
System details
Mode of access: World Wide Web
Video recording format
other
Label
Ralph Ellison : an American journey
Link
Publication
Note
Title from title frames
Antecedent source
unknown
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Content category
two-dimensional moving image
Content type code
  • tdi
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 87 min.)
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Medium for sound
other
Other physical details
digital, .flv file, sound
Publisher number
1062803
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
sound
Sound on medium or separate
sound on medium
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
System control number
(OCoLC)897768011
System details
Mode of access: World Wide Web
Video recording format
other

Subject

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