A Choice of Weapons: The Films of Gordon Parks

November 3–December 1, 2017

This series focuses on celebrated photographer Gordon Parks’s groundbreaking and powerful work as a filmmaker.

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The Learning Tree
Shaft
Solomon Northup's Odyssey
Diary of a Harlem Family

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Films
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Past
Films
Past
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Past Films

Moments Without Proper Names
Gordon Parks
United States, 1986
Friday, November 3 4 PM
In this beautiful, expressionistic essay film, Gordon Parks reflects on how America shaped him, from his childhood on a Kansas farm to the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. With shorts Flavio and Diary of a Harlem Family.
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The Learning Tree
Gordon Parks
United States, 1969
Friday, November 17 4 PM
Introduction by Stephanie Cannizzo
The first Hollywood studio film directed by an African American, The Learning Tree is Gordon Parks’s semiautobiographical portrait of black youth, racial discrimination, and masculinity in Depression-era Kansas.
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Shaft
Gordon Parks
United States, 1971
Sunday, November 19 7 PM
Introduction by Maya Raiford Cohen
A black private eye holds his own against underworld kings and corrupt cops in Gordon Parks’s seminal blaxploitation opus, with an Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes.
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Solomon Northup’s Odyssey
Gordon Parks
United States, 1984
Friday, December 1 4 PM
Based on the 1853 memoir of a Northern black man kidnapped into slavery, Gordon Parks’s made-for-TV drama predates 12 Years a Slave by almost three decades. It has “a somber lyricism that’s hard to shake” (Bilge Ebiri).
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A Choice of Weapons: The Films of Gordon Parks

November 3–December 1, 2017

“[Gordon Parks] lived life on his own terms, and tried hard to create a rich and varied artwork that would resonate with people who took just a little time to care and who were craving aspects of their own reflections. . . . or society’s illness.”

—Dennis Leroy Kangalee

Gordon Parks (1912–2006) wrote that when he purchased his first camera in a pawnshop, “I had bought what was to become my weapon against poverty and racism.” While Parks stands in American memory primarily as a photographer, he chose multiple “weapons” to explore his artistic and humanitarian concerns. A renaissance man in practice and legacy, Parks produced films and musical compositions alongside his powerful photo essays, often with the same desire to raise social awareness. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument, this series presents depictions of black American life from slavery into the 1980s, a portrait of an accomplished and multidimensional artist, and an opportunity to experience groundbreaking examples of black filmmaking and storytelling. Parks’s early documentary shorts showcase his photojournalistic technique and commitment to social critique. His first feature, The Learning Tree (1969), is a semiautobiographical account of the lives of black children in Depression-era Kansas. Parks’s 1971 Harlem action-crime drama Shaft essentially invented the blaxploitation genre. Wielded with compassion and a restrained sense of outrage, the film camera proved to be a powerful weapon in Gordon Parks’s hands—both The Learning Tree and Shaft have been named to the National Film Registry. For Spike Lee, “Just the fact of who he was, what he did, that was the inspiration I needed. . . . The odds that he got these films made . . . when there were no black directors, is enough.”

Maya Raiford Cohen

Curatorial Intern

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Series organized by Maya Raiford Cohen, Assistant Curator Stephanie Cannizzo, and Film Curator Kathy Geritz; the series title is taken from Parks’s 1966 memoir. With thanks to Anton Yu and Alexander Fee, Doc Film, Chicago; Brian Belak, Chicago Film Archives; Shep Morgan, Pentacom Productions/Past America Inc.; Sandra Shulberg, IndieCollect; and Warner Bros. Classics.

A Choice of Weapons: The Films of Gordon Parks

November 3–December 1, 2017

Past Films

Moments Without Proper Names

The Learning Tree

Shaft

Solomon Northup’s Odyssey