A Good Man (Bill T. Jones)
Black History Month 2023 • 1h 25m
Directed by Bob Hercules,Gordon Quinn • Documentary • With Nana Amoah,
Bill T. Jones,
Lindsay Jones • 2011 • 86 minutes
A Good Man follows acclaimed director/choreographer Bill T. Jones (Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Still/Here, FELA!) as he and his company create their most ambitious work, an original dance-theater piece in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial. Through two tumultuous years, we witness raw moments of frustration as Jones struggles to communicate his vision to his dancers and collaborators, as well as moments of great exhilaration when movement transcends the limitation of words. Jones and his company come face to face with America’s unresolved contradictions about race, equality and the legacy of our 16th President. Initially an indictment of The Great Emancipator, the work evolves into a triumph of hope for our struggling democracy, with Jones revealing that Lincoln was “the only white man I was allowed to love unconditionally.” Premiering on the heels of Jones’s Tony Award for FELA! and 2010 Kennedy Center Honor, A Good Man is a window into the creative process and, indeed, the creative crisis of one of our nation’s most enduring, provocative artists as he explores what it means to be a good man, to be a free man, to be a citizen. A Good Man is a co-production of Kartemquin Films, AMERICAN MASTERS, Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Media Process Group, in association with Ravinia Festival.
"Bill T. Jones: A Good Man is part arts documentary, part performance piece and part soul poem" - Edmonton Journal
Up Next in Black History Month 2023
-
Quest
Directed by Jonathan Olshefski • Documentary • 2017 • 105 minutes
Filmed with vérité intimacy for nearly a decade, Quest is the moving portrait of the Rainey family living in North Philadelphia.
Beginning at the dawn of the Obama presidency, Christopher “Quest” Rainey and his wife Christine’a ...
-
The Last Angel of History
Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 1996 • 45 minutes
John Akomfrah, director of Seven Songs of Malcolm X, returns with an engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing c...
-
Natural Life
Directed by Tirtza Even • Documentary • With Lakim Carney, Chrissy Garcia, Faizan Hasnain • 2016 • 77 minutes
"Natural Life" is a feature length experimental documentary challenging inequities in the U.S. juvenile justice system by depicting, through documentation and reenactment, the stories of...