The Wiz (1978) directed by Sidney Lumet
"The moving about that the city multiplies and concentrates makes the city itself an immense social experience of lacking a place -- an experience that is, to be sure, broken up into countless tiny deportations (displacements and walks), compensated for by the relationships and intersections of these exoduses that intertwine and create an urban fabric, and placed under the sign of what ought to be, ultimately, the place but is only a name, the City...a universe of rented spaces haunted by a nowhere or by dreamed-of places.” ― Michel de Certeau
“… Action, though it may proceed from nowhere, so to speak, acts into a medium where every reaction becomes a chain reaction and where every process is the cause of new processes.” - Hannah Arendt
For our final film, we turn back, full circle to the Broadway musical of the New York imaginary. This 'urban' black transposition of the great American story (perhaps the mostly originally American of all myth narratives within our popular culture) of illusion and fantasy and the triumph of individual humanity and the power of collective action to overcome exploitation. The great adventure story of Dorothy envisions a fantastical New York City, where Harlem and The Financial District are as far apart as Kansas and Oz. This film is a wonderful repositioning of an urban, black experience (music, dancing, landscape) to the center of our hearts and imaginations. Starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, there’s no place like home! Originally panned by critics, Sidney Lumet’s cult classic includes songs “Ease on Down the Road” and “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News."
