Maya Angelou Films | Maya Angelou Filmography | Maya Angelou Biography | Maya Angelou Career | Maya Angelou Awards

Truly a renaissance woman, Maya Angelou has had an enchantingly colorful career. Nicknamed ?Maya? by her beloved older brother Bailey, she has worked as a dancer, composer, poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, in addition to film producer, screenwriter, and director. She was even the first black and female streetcar fare collector in San Francisco. In the realm of motion pictures, she has been nothing less than a pioneer for women of color; and, like most pioneers, she faced enormous challenges in her early efforts to bring more varied, realistic, and nuanced portrayals of African Americans to film and television screens.

Angelou was the first African-American woman to write the script and musical score for a feature film, Georgia, Georgia. Adapted from one of her stories, it is about a beautiful, sharp-tongued black woman, played by Diana Sands, from an impoverished Southern background who has gained international fame as a pop singer. On tour in Sweden, she responds flippantly when reporters ask her about a number of ?Black issues,? and later, supposedly caught in the throes of the so-called ?white fever,? she has a relationship with a handsome, white photographer. But the heroine?s attraction to white culture creates a conflict with her black companion, a grandmotherly woman who hates whites as much as Georgia loves them. Angelou was thoroughly dissatisfied with the completed film because she disagreed with the approach of the director, Stig Bjorkman. She considered that as a Swedish man, Bjorkman had no understanding of African Americans and had failed to bring the essence of her work, especially its romance, to the screen. While in Sweden, Angelou assiduously studied the craft of cinematography, as she explained, learning everything from ?breaking down a script and putting it on a ?day chart? to breaking down a camera.? Consequently, she was prompted to pursue work as a director in order to attempt to more effectively convey the multifaceted ?rhythms? of African-American life on-screen. Subsequently, producer David Wolper cast her in the monumental television miniseries Roots, with the understanding that she would later be a given a project of her own to direct; however, her chance was lost when Wolper sold his production company.

In 1972 Angelou optioned her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, with a film producer who agreed to let her direct her own project, but he later reneged. So, she bought her script back and proclaimed that she would write and direct any film she made in the future. Nevertheless, in 1978, she reluctantly signed a contract with CBS Television that limited her involvement in the production of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to co-writing the script. She later confessed to a New York Times interviewer that she made the deal with CBS because she felt compelled to abandon her long-held conviction that black films should be produced by black filmmakers, though she maintained that it behooved white filmmakers to actively endeavor to learn about and to respect black sensibilities. The resulting film was acclaimed for offering a poignant account of Angelou?s childhood during the Great Depression in the segregated South, especially her close relationships with her brother Bailey and with her grandparents who raised the two after their parents divorced, as well as of the rape that rendered her mute for several years after her rapist was killed by outraged friends. Critics likewise boasted that the film represented one of television?s infrequent efforts to examine racism and the African-American family in more contemporary terms, outside the context of slavery. Although Angelou herself was pleased with the results, she lamented that, in general, there were considerable strains for an author working in television where, as she put it, ?everyone and his dog has a chance to pick at a writer?s work.?

Seeking a more advantageous relationship with Hollywood, Angelou signed a writer-producer contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1978 that made her the first African-American woman to sign such a deal with a major production company. As a result, she made a television movie for NBC entitled Sister, Sister, which she wrote and co-produced with a one-and-a-half million dollar budget. Dubbed Angelou?s ?black-Americanization of Chekhov? by an NBC executive, the network was notably reticent about releasing it: it was four years before the film was screened. In addition, Angelou was informed that in order to procure the director the executive producer wanted, she would have to agree to share her co-producer credit. She agreed, but the producer later insisted that he wanted sole producer credit or he would file a complaint with the Writers Guild in order to acquire half of the writing credit.

Angelou has had several stage and screen acting parts over the years and she has made hundreds of guest appearances on television. Furthermore, she has directed plays for public television, and has written, directed, and produced television documentaries, including Black! Blues! Black! for the National Education Television network. In the 1970s Angelou had vehemently objected to Hollywood?s depictions of blacks and singled out the ?blaxploitation? film genre, in particular, for what she claimed were their demeaning, distorted, and stereotypical conceptions. Further, she advocated the notion of black investment in black film projects in order to counter prevailing stereotypes. But, she questioned whether the ideal situation was for black filmmakers to make films about black people, or to produce films that have nothing to do with being black. Notably, since that time, and with Angelou?s considerable assistance, her dream has become a reality on both counts as increasing numbers of black directors, screenwriters, and producers have recently made many successful feature films, thus inspiring some critics to declare the 1990s a period of ?black renaissance? in Hollywood.?CYNTHIA FELANDO