William Greaves

Scott MacDonald is director of cinema and media studies and professor of art history at Hamilton College. His books include The Garden in the Machine: A Field Guide to Independent Films About Place (2001), Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema (2015), and The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama (2019).Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and director of Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005) and the coeditor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (2015). She is the host of “Silent Sunday Nights” on Turner Classic Movies.

• AcknowledgmentsPreface. William Greaves: Renaissance Man and Race ManNote on Style1. William Greaves, Documentary Filmmaking, and the African-American Experience, by Adam Knee and Charles Musser2. Meta-interview with William Greaves (an Audiobiography), by Scott MacDonald3. Interview with Louise Archambault Greaves, by Scott MacDonald4. Interview with David Greaves, by Scott MacDonald5. The Efficacy of Acting, by Katherine Kinney6. POEM/1965, by William Greaves7. The First World Festival of Negro Arts: An Afro-American View, by William Greaves8. Views Across the Atlantic: An American Vision of the First World Festival of Negro Arts, by Joseph L. Underwood9. Sisters Inside Still a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class—Black Women Through the Lens of William Greaves, by Jacqueline Najuma Stewart10. The Documentary as Sociodrama: William Greaves’s In the Company of Men (1969) and The Deep North (1988), by J. J. Murphy11. Pugilism and Performance: William Greaves, Muhammad Ali, and the Making of The Fight, by Alexander Johnston12. Black Journal: A Few Notes from the Executive Producer, by William Greaves13. 100 Madison Avenues Will Be of No Help, by William Greaves14. Black Journal: A Personal Look Backward, by St. Clair Bourne15. “By, For and About”: Black Journal and the Rise of Multicultural Documentary in New York City, 1968–1975, by Charles Musser16. William Greaves, Black Journal, and the Long Roots of Black Internationalism, by Celeste Day Moore17. Government-Sponsored Film and Latinidad: Voice of La Raza (1971), by Laura Isabel Serna18. Afterthoughts on the Black American Film Festival, by William Greaves19. Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice: Personal Production Notes, by Michelle DusterDossier on the Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Films20. Proposal: Theatrical Short Subject, by William Greaves21. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One Rediscovered: A Conversation with Dara Meyers-Kingsley, by Scott MacDonald22. The Country in the City: Central Park as Metaphor in Jonas Mekas’s Walden and William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, by Scott MacDonald23. “Just Another Word for Jazz”: The Signifying Auteur in William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (Excerpt), by Akiva Gottlieb24. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2, by William Greaves25. Some Concepts and Logistics in Shooting the Two Excerpts of Take 2½, by William Greaves26. The Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Effect on Filmmaking Dynamics, by William Greaves27. The Symbio Cinematic Environment: An Aesthetic yet Scientific Theory for the Film, by William Greaves28. The Daring, Original, and Overlooked: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, by Richard Brody29. Still No Answers, by Amy Taubin30. “We’re Not Raping Bill”: Race and Gender Politics in Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Take 2½, by Joan Hawkins31. Symbiopsychotaxiplasticity: Some Takes on William Greaves, by Franklin Cason, Jr., and Tsitsi Jaji32. A Guy Who Could Think Around the Corner: Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, by Patricia R. Zimmermann33. Revealing Greaves: Unhiding His Archive, by Shola LynchFilmographyBibliographyContributorsIndex

During his long and immensely productive filmmaking career, William Greaves remained focused on educating audiences about African and African American contributions to culture and history, and about the ways in which this long and productive history has been ignored and distorted. His many and varied films, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 2000s, are a major achievement by an American master, an engagement with cinema long past ready for rediscovery.