William Greaves

William Greaves is one of the most significant and compelling American filmmakers of the past century. Best known for his experimental film about its own making, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Greaves was an influential independent documentary filmmaker who produced, directed, shot, and edited more than a hundred films on a variety of social issues and on key African American figures ranging from Muhammad Ali to Ralph Bunche to Ida B. Wells. A multitalented artist, his career also included stints as a songwriter, a member of the Actors Studio, and, during the late 1960s, a producer and cohost of Black Journal, the first national television show focused on African American culture and politics.This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of Greaves’s remarkable career. It brings together a wide range of material, including a mix of incisive essays from critics and scholars, Greaves’s own writings, an extensive meta-interview with Greaves, conversations with his wife and collaborator Louise Archambault Greaves and his son David, and a critical dossier on Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. Together, they illuminate Greaves’s mission to use filmmaking as a tool for transforming the ways African Americans were perceived by others and the ways they saw themselves. This landmark book is an essential resource on Greaves’s work and his influence on independent cinema and African-American culture.

During his long and immensely productive filmmaking career, William Greaves remained focused on educating audiences about African and African American contributions to culture and history, and about the ways in which this long and productive history has been ignored and distorted. His many and varied films, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 2000s, are a major achievement by an American master, an engagement with cinema long past ready for rediscovery., Scott MacDonald and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart have broken new ground on a whole new field of film study with William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission. A rewarding adventure in itself, this is the first study of this scope on Greaves, an absolutely essential and kaleidoscopic figure of filmmaking and film thinking but one who until now has been hidden within his immense productivity., Some artists are so far ahead of their time that the uniqueness of their vision goes unrecognized. So it was with William Greaves, a man of many talents, who created innovative forms to represent crucial issues. Here, finally, is the appreciation he has long deserved., Through a thoughtfully curated selection of essays and other materials, the editors provide readers with a thorough understanding of the cultural context, aesthetic influences, and influence of William Greaves’s work. Following the director’s understanding of film as constantly in flux, the editors’ approach offers a beginning, or “take one,” to what they hope is a longer discussion of the director’s oeuvre. The result is the first detailed study of an important twentieth-century filmmaker that promises to engage scholars and students alike.

Scott MacDonald is director of cinema and media studies and professor of art history at Hamilton College. His books include The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place (2001), Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema (2015), and The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama (2019).Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and director of Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005) and the coeditor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (2015). She is the host of “Silent Sunday Nights” on Turner Classic Movies.