Index

Although it may not be the goal of every filmmaker, most of us learn something when we watch movies. They make us think. They make us feel. Occassionally they have the power to transform lives. In her book Reel To Real, bell hooks talks back to films she has watched, as a way to engage the pedagogy of cinema--the way film teaches its audience.
bell hooks comes to film, not as a film critic but as a cultural critic, fascinated by the issues movies raise--the ways cinema depicts race, sex, and class. Reel To Real not only brings together hooks' classic essays on films such as Paris Is Burning or the infamous "Whose Pussy Is It" essay about Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, but also newer work on Pulp Fiction, Crooklyn and Waiting To Exhale. hooks also examines the world of independent cinema. Here, conversations with filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and Arthur Jaffa are linked with critical essays, including a provocative piece on Larry Clark's Kids, to show the radical possiblity of cinema--that it can function subversively, as much as it functions to maintain the status quo.
In its review of Outlaw Culture, the New York Times wrote of bell hooks: "She brings to the task of cultural criticism an astute eye and courageous spirit..." In Reel To Real hooks enhances our visual experience of movies, enabling us to see in a new way. Her work, like the best films of our time, provoke thought and create a context for dialogue. The essays and conversations collected here bear witness to the passion and pleasure of critical engagement.