Black Caesar is the second film directed
by noted independent/low budget director Larry Cohen, and also his second to
deal with race and class. Viewed another way, it was his first “Blaxpolitation”
film, a chronicle of the rapid rise and sad fall of Tommy Gibbs, an ambitious
and ruthless black gangster, the “Godfather of Harlem.” Cohen has made a name
for himself in the 1970s and 80s as a maker of quick, inexpensive exploitation
films in disreputable genres (usually crime and horror films like It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent, The
Stuff and others) but has always packed his films full of bigger ideas. And
if he didn’t work so hurriedly and cheaply and in these genres – the very
things that give his films their loose, rough charm – he’d probably be
considered a major American stylist in the vein of Scorsese and his generation
of filmmakers (which Cohen is, technically, part of). I once said to a few
friends “I wish his films were just 17% better than they are because then
they’d be considered masterpieces instead of just a lot of fun.” - but fun they
are, no less for their ambition and reach than for what they actually put
across in the final cut.
As
noted, the film chronicles the life of Tommy Gibbs (played by former football
player Fred Williamson) from his young days as a shoeshine boy trying to hustle
his way ahead and learn the ways of the mobsters who rule his neighborhood to
his time as the man ruling that neighborhood himself. Early in the film we see
a young version of Tommy helping out a hitman and running hush money to a
racist cop who ends up beating him and giving him a permanent limp. Flash
forward to years later when Tommy decides that he doesn’t need to see white
gangsters ruling his neighborhood when he’s perfectly capable of the task. A
great montage sequence about 15 minutes into the film succinctly shows his rise
to power while the James Brown soundtrack does its work, setting the mood and
commenting on the action. Once he’s at the top – or near it anyway – his past
starts to come back to haunt him: his previously absent father returns to make
amends in a particularly uncomfortable, weird, and sad scene, and this,
combined with his mother’s passing, cracks the hardened and ruthless exterior
Tommy’s displayed for the whole film to this point. And once he proves that he
has humanity underneath that, he begins to unravel. His rise was swift but his
fall is more protracted as everyone slowly turns their back on him.
What’s unusual –
though not unprecedented – is the way that Gibbs is portrayed in the film as
very nearly unlikeable and his slow defeat sucks any glamour out of the
portrayal of the gangster lifestyle until he ends up, literally, surrounded by
garbage. Cohen is telling a classic “crime doesn’t pay” gangland story with its
rising and falling dramatic arc, but updating the material to 1973 standards
with smarts and savvy, hitting contemporary topical issues along the way. And
even now, over 40 years later, it still feels fresh because of Cohen’s techniques
– using hand held cameras on the streets to achieve a documentary vibe of the
times (NYC bystanders and pedestrians are often staring at either Tommy’s
flashy style or at the camera, clearly unaware they’re about to be in a movie),
hiring stunt players but still improvising things on the fly, as when he has a
driver roll up on the sidewalk to escape potential assassins (in a previous
edition’s commentary track Cohen claims he didn’t bother with permits, just
drove on the sidewalk and got done filming before he could get in trouble). Fred
Willliamson had starred the previous year in the minor hit Hammer but this one solidified his status as one of the leading
tough guys of the Blaxploitation movement – the film was successful enough that
Cohen shot and released a sequel, Hell Up
in Harlem, before the year was out (and as a side note, shot that on
weekends while spending weekdays working on his next project It’s Alive). And the film’s scenes and
ideas have had an impact beyond strengthening Williamson’s cache – both the
massacre of some Italian rivals (in a scene that feels more comic than
horrific/exciting) and the confrontation of Tommy’s girlfriend and best friend
flash forward to scenes in Brian De Palma’s Scarface
remake (though they’re played out differently there).
And again,
there’s a classic “crime doesn’t pay” story on top, but right there mixed up
with it – not even bubbling underneath as subtext – there’s also a barbed look
at class and race that’s most definitely sympathetic and understanding to Tommy
even if he’s still portrayed as a bad guy. If a viewer were to note, for
example, that a corrupt cop holding a gun on Tommy in a corrupt lawyer’s office
decided to humiliate him by forcing him to again shine his shoes, and that right
when he says “give me a shine like you used to” there’s an edit to the
shoeshine kit underneath an American flag, and wanted to make the association
that Cohen is perhaps suggesting that the law and corrupt money in American
politics combine to keep African Americans down, one could certainly do that.
Or one could watch the movie and leave that kind of reading alone. It’s one of
Cohen’s best films no matter which way you choose to watch it.
-
Patrick Brown
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