Q&A: Danny Glover

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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Lately, Danny Glover seems to spend more time in front of the camera as an activist than as an actor. SeeingBlack.com caught up with Glover recently in his role as chairman of the board of TransAfrica, members of which have been outspoken on the forced ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Accompanied by TransAfrica's president Bill Fletcher, Glover spoke to reporters about art and politics at the New African Films Festival in Washington, DC.

Q: What is the relationship between Haiti and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections?

Glover: Our president [of TransAfrica] Bill Fletcher has been involved in that on a daily basis. So I'll first let him answer that question on Haiti.

Fletcher: What we see in Haiti is a continuation of a foreign policy that's representative of how the Bush administration believes that there are no international laws that they are bound to respect. And so, whether it is invading Iraq, whether its about destabilizing Aristide, whether it is supporting coups in Venezuela, this administration has a level of arrogance and contempt for the people of the world because they believe that no one can stop them. And so, yes, this is an issue for people in the United States to consider in November. Do they want an administration that takes them toward the brink of catastrophe, or do they want a different approach to foreign policy?

Glover: I don't think you can put it any clearer than that. Out of [Fletcher's] statement plays out the whole scenario that we see around the world. And, of course, the countries that the U.S. has gone into have been weakened—as the United States weakened Haiti, as it weakened Iraq, as it attempted to weaken Cuba, or as it attempted to weaken Venezuela. Through that process, the U.S. attempts to use whatever power it has to affect what it calls a "regime change."

Q: Relating current events to this film festival, do you think that the images that Americans get, either through film or through the mass media now, impacts our ability to empathize with people of color, particularly Africans of the diaspora?

Glover: Well I think certainly so. And look here, you're not going to get all Americans to look at African films. But what you can do is build a constituency based on film and other related activities, in terms of organizing and setting in motion a different sense of what policy should be about, and what concern should be about. So they may form that critical mass that you need to not only affect how we view situations, how we view people, but also how we view the policies toward them.

Q: Is it the responsibility of Black artists to not only be artists but to be activists and advocate for causes?

Glover: I think that it is the responsibility of all of us to be activists, not just artists, and for us to frame the role of the citizen in that way. We all should see ourselves as citizens of the world. We have to be active. Wherever we are, whatever place in life we are, we have to be active.

I was just at a memorial yesterday for Edward Said at Columbia University—just an enormous individual. He's Palestinian. Edward Said is the one who made it possible for Columbia University to get [writer and political activist] C.L.R. James' papers. Edward Said was the cat who knew not only about his own struggle as a Palestinian but also knew about the struggle of African people and people of color around the world—and that's extraordinary. What he said was interesting: we are not only artists and intellectuals. We have to rake muck. We have to create dissent. We have to question everything. We have to question power all the time, wherever that power comes from.

Q: Where do you see your future in film in relationship to your political activism right now?

Glover: I really don't know how to answer that! (laughs). I try to do films and I try to encourage films that I think are important…and hopefully, my work encourages young artists.

Q: Can you talk about your work with Carlos Santana and Artists for a New South Africa?

Glover: Carlos Santana a wonderful man. I've known him a long time. We went to high school together in San Francisco. Carlos has made an extraordinary contribution to South Africa. ANSA has formed very strategic partnerships with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. We're focusing on the issue of AIDS, focusing on the issue of development. We began Artists for a New South Africa 15 years ago during the height of the fight against apartheid. And to have it sustained makes a statement.

The first thing we have to acknowledge is the work that Africans are doing themselves, right on the ground. From Senegal to Uganda to South Africa, and many other places. We have to acknowledge that work, and embrace that work, and uphold that work. Second, we have to campaign for the resources from them to do that work. We have to say that the work that we do, collectively do, works. It works. We need it to work We're desperate for it to work. It must work.

Q: Can you talk about your work with [film historian] Manthia Diawara on the new documentary "Conakry Kas" ("The People of the Conakry") in Guinea?

Glover: We talked to musicians, we talked to artists we talked to people who have been influenced by the ideas of Sekou Toure and the ideas of liberation fostered by his movement…What I take back from all my visits is the sheer, awesome dynamics of being there being with people and watching their lives unfold before you, and watching them dance and enjoy music—whether it's a 76-year-olf tenor sax player, or a drum maker…or a young dance group….

Q: How can we compete in the era of the $100 million film?

Glover: …You don't want to do or compete with a $100 million dollar film. You want to do a film that will allow you to build a culture, to build an idea, to place emphasis on the importance of film and its relationship to people's lives. Not just the entertainment piece but allowing people to see their own lives and have some revelation over that. That's what film is intended to do. When I say progressive film, I mean filmmaking that allows people a space in which they can be active.

Q: Do you think that Djimon Hounsou's Oscar nomination is a sign of change in Hollywood?

Glover: I don't know if the nomination is a sign of change, particularly in this industry. People make too much of Oscars and what they do and what they pretend to do. I think the sign of change will be when you see African films on television, African films at film festivals and we feel just as comfortable with seeing African films and we are seeing European films.

Mind you, the heyday of seeing all kind of films—you used to be able to see Brazilian films, Bolivian films, Venezuelan films, Cuban films, Mexican films, Italian comedies, French films, and everything else. But what is happening is that this global monster has taken over and basically put many of the national film industries out of business because U.S. films dominate the screens—whether they are in Italy or in France.

Q:Why do you think it is important to be here tonight? [TransAfrica is a co-sponsor of the festival]

Glover: Let me begin by saying this: the first time that I saw an African film made by an African was probably 30 years ago. I watched African filmmakers, met with African filmmakers. Attended the film festival at Ouagadougou—the Pan African Film Festival. I was a founder of the Pan African film festival in Los Angeles. So I've been very, very close, actually, to African film—all over the continent. And well before so after doing "Mandela" (1987) in Zimbabwe.

So it was important for me to be to help promote African film. We understand people through how they see themselves through their own fiction. It's as clear as that: only they can tell their own stories. Their stories can't be told by "Tears of the Sun," which was a film recently produced by Hollywood. Their stories can't be told by "Sahara," which is another film that will be made by Hollywood, a big-budget film. They have to tell their stories, and you can learn so much about who they are, how they see themselves, and how they see their own transformation through their films. That's the exciting thing about seeing African films. Whenever I see African films, I'm just seeing another way in which people have identified themselves and stood on their own and told the stories that are important to them.

Q: What are the biggest challenges now for African film?

Glover: Certainly resources to do their films and distribution. But not only distribution. I think it's important on one hand and sometimes we overemphasize the importance. It's important on one hand to have distribution in the United States and the West but also distribution in Africa itself is important.

The first thing that Kwame Nkrumah when he took office is set up the Ghana film Festival or Ghana Films. Africans have always know the power of film. Ousmane Sembene's films—about the early transformation from colonialism to independence. So this way of telling stories in Africa is new. And they know they have been demonized in some ways by the previous films. One film that Paul Robeson did—"Sanders of the Rivers," which he thought was going to be one thing but, in some sense, it turned out to be a glorification of colonialism. So the ways in which the powers of film—and we all know the power of film particularly people of color here, African-Americans know the power of film, know how derrogatory images are falsely created and sustained in film throughout the whole history of film over the last 100 years. So it's important to us to see those stories.You understand so much about people when they begin to tell their own stories—even the smallest stories about family. And, what you find is that there is a place where you identify with each other.

Q: Is it the responsibility of Black artists to set up African art houses so you do don't always have African films at a festival venue?

Glover: Well., we begin there [at a film festival]. I don't know what kind of structures ought to be set up but if we can get interest in showing African films on a consistent basis through film festivals, showing the films on a consistent basis—on places like Art and Entertainment or PBS—when you begin to have a creative dialogue about film. So we can understand what we are seeing. It's the idea that we can learn from these filmmakers.

Portions of this interview first appeared on BET.com.

-- March 15, 2004

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