Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is by all means a renaissance woman. A celebrated poet, novelist, educator, actress, filmmaker, producer and civil rights activist, Angelou has conquered numerous media outlets. Alongside her numerous honored autobiographies and poetry, she became the first by an African American woman to write a screen play that was filmed with 1972 Georgia, Georgia, showing her as a talented author. She takes on the role as auteur with her first time directing a film Down in the Delta.

In the Author/Auteur reading, auteurism is said to have developed in the 1950s from the critical ideas of the French journal Cahiers du Cinema, in which it argued that although social context shaped film processes, it was the director who authored a film. The reading describes a camera as a means by which directors inscribe their ideas onto film. This can be seen in Down in the Delta. Though Angelou was not the writer behind this film, it’s based on a contest-winning screenplay by a Georgian named Myron Goble, the film is a definite reflection of her influence in it. According to Rod Gustafson of Parents Previews, “Angelou's familiarity with the trials of her characters makes this story natural and compelling.”

As a director, Angelou, plays into the reading’s description of “the history of cinema as the self-expressive signatures of Hollywood directors rather than a collection of ideas to which these signature were signed.” This is the case as even though this story isn’t written by Angelou, one can see her as a character in the story, knowing her history. Like the main character, Angelou was a single mother at 16 and had to build herself up to get to the point where she is today. According to Gustafon, Angelou, who directed this film at the age of 70 (film was released in 1998), displayed her decades of wisdom throughout the film.

For Down in the Delta being her first film with a budget of $3 million, Angelou did a pretty decent job with the overall rating of the movie, according to Parents Preview being an A-. Robert Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times applauds Angelou for not calling attention to herself in the film with “unnecessary visual touches, but focuses on the business at hand”. This view of the film goes with the idea that even though Angelou’s familiarity with the character is evident, she is able to convey the story without purposely placing her personal history in it. Therein going against the idea that it is necessary to look at who is behind the film when critiquing it. Stephen Holden of the New York Times called the film “unabashedly inspirational” describing it saying "Down in the Delta may be an impossible dream, a cinematic Hallmark card of familial togetherness, but the vision it offers is still a dream worth dreaming.”


Down In The Delta by Rod Gustafson | Posted on Jul. 19, 1999

Down In The Delta by Robert Ebert / December 25, 1998
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19981225/REVIEWS/812250302/1023

'Down in the Delta':The Healing Power of a Delta Family's Roots By Stephen Holden http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/122598delta-film-review.html