A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Release Date:
February 10, 1998
Original Title:
Small Steps, Big Strides: The Black Experience in Hollywood
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
AMC
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 58
Louis Gossett Jr. takes viewers through a special documentary celebration of the groundbreaking achievements of African-American performers and their contributions to Hollywood filmmaking. Spectacular film clips, rare behind-the-scenes footage, archival photographs and fascinating interviews chronicle nearly a century of tribulation and triumph. Gazing at the outstanding range of African-American stars on today's movie screens, it is hard to imagine a time when there were no black leading men or women, a time when all of the roles available for people of color were considerably less heroic than they are now. Social progress came in small steps on the silver screen, film by film, for equal visibility and dignity on the silver screen; now it is possible to honor their struggles, their talent and their sacrifices.
Director:
Velma Cato
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.