HBO was good enough to broadcast the overlooked 2013 musical
“Black Nativity” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) on Christmas even (going against
Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” on NBC).
The musical is adapted by the director from a libretto by
Langston Hughes and has a lot of “soul music”, reminding me of the 1982 fest, “Say
Amen, Somebody” (George T. Nierenberg). The latter film I remember seeing in Minneapolis in 1998 while recovering from my hip fracture, getting a lot of attention in a Landmark theater there.
“Black Nativity” tells the story of street-smart teen
Langston (Jacob Latimore), raised by a single mom in Baltimore. In one of the songs early in the movie he
describes himself as “motherless”. He
hops on a Peter Pan bus to New York City to visit estranged relatives, Reverend
Cornell and Aretha Cobbs (Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett). He resents the minister’s rules and gets in
trouble with the law, trying to rob the father (Vondie Curtis-Hall). who had
abandoned him in a climatic scene that seems over the top. He gets a measure of
faith, even from a street prophet (Nas Jones).
The official site is here (Fox Searchlight and Maven).
As for the James Steward character George Bailey in the
classic 1946 film mentioned above, I’ve always
been impressed by how much difference one’s own life can make on others. I think that's still true of me. See other comments Dec. 23, 2007 about this classic. Note the "complete film" on the Paris Theater in New York City in he picture above (Sept. 22, 2014).
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