St. Clair Bourne, Chronicler of Heroes' Lives - filmmaker - Brief Article

Filmmaker St. Clair Bourne explores lives and times through film. His documentaries resurrect history long since forgotten or never even exposed. In Motion: Amiri Baraka, produced and directed by Bourne in 1985, charts the life and career of the political activist and writer. The Black and the Green, directed and produced by Bourne in 1985, chronicles a meeting between the Irish Republican Army and black activists. John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk (1996) reveals the many talents of the renowned historian and Pan-African activist.

"Black men who define themselves from an Afrocentric point of view fascinate me--how they succeeded and overcame opposition," says Bourne, who has made a career of bringing to life African-American legends. His latest celluloid journey, the two-hour documentary Paul Robeson: Here I Stand, travels through the life of the legendary actor-activist-scholar. It also marks the first time that the Robeson family has released Paul Robeson's personal documents. Consequently, this film could be the most extensive documentary done about Robeson.

Bourne, head of Chamba Mediaworks in New York City, pored through archives of personal papers, private films and confidential political documents, such as FBI files, as well as the diaries that Robeson's wife kept during travels to Wales, France, Germany, Russia and Africa. Bourne supplements those materials with interviews with Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Lena Horne and Gordon Parks, as well as other friends and co-workers of Robeson.

"Here I Stand is a combination of music and never-before-seen footage of Robeson performing in films, such as Russian Experience, and testimony from people who knew Robeson. It's a full picture of Robeson and his experiences," says Bourne while in the midst of editing more than 400 hours of footage. "In fact, the documentary will do more than personalize Robeson. I learned how very human he was--not this mystical figure or icon that people imagine--which I feel is a good thing to reveal. If all your figures are totally godlike, they're inaccessible, and I think that happens a lot with African-American legends."

Bourne was chosen to direct Here I Stand by producer Chiz Schultz (whose credits include A Soldier's Story) and executive producer David T. Menair. Both were impressed with Bourne's past work, and they were confident that he would explore Robeson beyond his Othello and Emperor Jones fame. Born April 9, 1898, in Princeton, N.J., Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who escaped from North Carolina on the Underground Railroad. His mother, a school-teacher from Philadelphia, came from a family of free blacks, Quakers and American Indians.

The film highlights Robeson's undergraduate accomplishments at Rutgers

University, which included receiving Phi Beta Kappa scholastic honors; making All-American in football for two years; earning 15 varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, discus, shot put and javelin; and being debating champion and class valedictorian.

Graduating from Columbia University Law School in 1923, Robeson pursued a career in the performing arts. Even while he toured Europe and the United States in stage productions and concerts and starred in films, Robeson remained politically active, be it in the civil rights movement or in support of the United Auto Workers.

When he died in 1976, at age 77, Robeson was a true Renaissance man. Here I Stand focuses on a characteristic of Robeson's that Bourne most admires. In every pursuit, Robeson was compelled by one issue: "In my music, my plays, my films, I want to carry always this central idea: to be African."

Bourne, who has taught film at the University of California at Los Angeles, Cornell University and Queens College, has 37 productions under his belt. Currently, he is producing (with Denzel Washington) Half Past Autumn for Home Box Office, on the life of Gordon Parks. Bourne is also co-writing, co-producing and directing an independent feature, Exiles and Allies, about black Vietnam deserters who live in exile in Stockholm, Sweden.

Next up is a documentary on the late black activist Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). "It's all about capturing history and re-creating periods many have forgotten," says Bourne.

Ann Brown, a freelance writer in Los Angeles, is a regular contributor to Black Enterprise. Her last article for American Visions, "Bayou Spirits On-Screen," appeared in the October/November 1997 issue.

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