New Focus on the Old Guard

Although the angry young men are drawing most of the attention, they aren't the only black directors making movies these days. Other slices of black life are turning up on the screen in mild comedies like Michael Schultz's Livin' Large! and in colorful period pieces like Bill Duke's A Rage in Harlem, based on a 1957 novel by crime writer Chester Himes. The emphasis in these films may be on entertainment, but their directors still try to slip in meaningful messages and positive images. "I'm an American," Duke recently told the Los Angeles Times. "But being a black American, my experience is a particular one, and I don't want to ignore that."

Both Duke, 48, and Schultz, 52, came of age in the movie business during the mid-1970s, another period when Hollywood was high on black films. Duke broke in as an actor and appeared in such movies as Commando and Predator. But wanting to be "where the real action is," he enrolled in directing classes at the American Film Institute in 1982. After he completed the two-year program, no feature work was forthcoming, so Duke went into television. He directed about 130 shows, including episodes of Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice. His skill in mixing humor and violence in those programs persuaded the producers of A Rage in Harlem that he was the man for their movie and won him his feature debut.

Schultz, a principal director with New York City's Negro Ensemble Co., migrated west after seeing Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, the 1971 breakthrough film written and directed by Melvin Van Peebles, father of Mario. "Sweetback proved to Hollywood that there was an underserved portion of the filmgoing market," says Schultz. "And when I saw it, I said, 'I can do that.' " And do it he did. Within three years, Schultz had directed as many movies; one of them, Car Wash, was a commercial hit. A string of successful vehicles for Richard Pryor helped raise Schultz's stock even higher. Then, in ; 1978, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, his $12 million tribute to the Beatles, flopped big, and Schultz's career lost steam. "I was in a major burnout," he says. "The projects from then on didn't come like they did for white directors who failed."

Now, with Livin' Large!, Schultz is back with an updated version of the kind of comedy that first gained him recognition. "It's about making very human choices," he says, describing the movie and perhaps his own career as well. "It's something we all have to do, finding out what price society makes us pay."