"Manthia Diawara's Black American Cinema shows how refreshingly far away from decorous consensus the field of Black cinema study is today, in a varied and provocative montage of opinions, personal histories, position statements, and historical criticism."-- Journal of Communication, Summer 1995"...essays in Black American Cinema make the book a worthy addition to the small shelf of Black cinema criticism."-- Journal of Communication, Summer 1995"...In attempting to plug the vast academic gaps in my knowledge, this seminal collection of essays from the AFI [American Film Institute] readers series proved invaluable. In the preface Diawara talks about addressing both “a black film aesthetic by focusing on the black artist” and “the thorny issue of film spectatorship”. This authoritative volume covers film-makers from Oscar Micheaux to Spike Lee, and is as relevant now as it was when first published." -- Mark Kermode, The Guardian