|
1972: indie production company Kelly-Jordan Enterprises sets out to capitalize on the existing market for gothic horror films and the growing popularity of blaxploitation. They hire Bill Gunn—playwright, actor, multiple threat artist—to direct their Black Vampire movie. He in turn makes an arthouse thriller about addiction, culture clashes, and moral redemption.
Hailed as one of the great artistic achievements of modern American cinema, it was the only American film screened during Critics’ Week at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival--where it won a standing ovation. It was literally ahead of its time--so audacious and unique it was all but buried.
We are proud to present this exclusive DVD restoration of Bill Gunn’s director's cut, including 3 minutes of footage missing from previous home video versions.
Ganja & Hess
Kelly-Jordan Enterprises
Written and Directed by Bill Gunn
Produced by Chiz Schultz
Starring Duane Jones, Marlene Clark, Bill Gunn, Sam Waymon, Leonard
Jackson
Original Score by Sam Waymon
Edited by Victor Kanefsky
Cinematography by James E. Hinton
Bill Gunn, playwright, novelist, and actor, was one of the first
black filmmakers ever to direct a major studio feature. His importance
as a black artist of the highest order, though, has only been
accorded recently--during his all-too-short life, Gunn struggled
against racism that held him back from fulfilling his artistic
promise.
In 1973, Gunn wrote and directed a feature called Ganja & Hess for Kelly-Jordan Enterprises. It was the age of "blaxploitation,"
which Kelly-Jordan hoped to exploit to find an audience for a
high-minded horror picture. It starred Duane Jones (star of the
venerable cult hit Night of the Living Dead) and Marlene Clark (from, among other cult faves, Beware the Blob!). The story, a delirious vampire tale set in the modern day,
was deeply allegorical--taking on such notions as addiction, and
the conflicts between black and white cultural heritage.
Ganja & Hess was screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it earned
a standing ovation. The French critics declared the film a major
artistic triumph, but American audiences were less impressed.
It opened in New York City with little advertising and almost
uniformly negative reviews. Within a week, Kelly-Jordan yanked
it from distribution and sold it to Heritage Enterprises.
Heritage hired Fima Noveck to recut the film drastically. He deleted the original African-music-inspired
score and replaced with it with cheap synthesizer music. He deleted
over a half hour's worth of footage, and reshuffled the remainder,
adding outtakes unused in Gunn's cut and redubbing some dialogue.
This new, bastardized version was released on videotape under
no less than five or six different titles.
Replaced by its shorter, more sensational video version, Ganja & Hess all but disappeared. In fact, in the creation of the shorter
cut, Heritage destroyed the original negative. For years, the
only way Gunn's vision could be seen in its proper form was by
infrequent screenings of the only known print by the Museum of
Modern Art. Ganja & Hess was one of MOMA's most often requested titles, and its popularity
ultimately resulted in the print suffering severe damage and being
retired.
In the late 1980's, Pearl Bowser, a black film historian, spent
$10,000 restoring a 16mm print for a limited nation-wide revival.
All Day Entertainment originally reissued Ganja & Hess for its 25th anniversary, restored to Bill Gunn's intended version. Our new digital transfer came from combining two previously unknown original 35mm prints with Gunn's own print held at MOMA! That deluxe collector's item DVD was for its time the ultimate collector's edition of this once-lost film.
But wait there's more!
There was a discrepancy in editing between the copy of the film that Bill Gunn donated to MOMA and the prints that had been held by the film's cinematographer and editor. A 3 minute sequence, which had been Bill Gunn's final dialogue in the original cut of the film, had been removed from release prints and was missing from our DVD restoration, even though it was described in the Video Watchdog article included on the disc as a supplement.
I spent many years trying to track down that missing sequence and reinstate it to the DVD. This new edition finally restores Bill Gunn's intended presentation, uncut, and maintains all of the special features from the original DVD edition plus a host of new features--all for $5 less than the old DVD! Why wait--upgrade now!
"Long considered irretrievably lost, . . . Ganja and Hess turns out to be one of the most extraordinary ethnic pictures
ever to have come out of the United States. . .it leaves audiences
reeling and wondering whether anybody had any idea how potent
a film they were making."
--Alan Stanbrook, Films and Filming
"What is radical about both Ganja & Hess and Sweetback Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is their formal positioning of Black characters and Black cultures
at the center of the screen, creating a sense of defamiliarization
of the classical film language. The two films also inaugurate
for Black cinema two narrative tracks with reagrd to time and
space... With reagrd to Black aesthetics, it is possible to put
in the same category as Ganja & Hess such films as A Powerful Thang (Davis), Daughters of the Dust (Dash), Losing Ground (Collins), Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger (Burnett), Tongues Untied (Riggs) and She's Gotta Have It (Lee)."
--Manthia Diawara, Cinemas of the Black Diaspora
"Ganja & Hess is designed with an acute painterly eye. Even in
its many butchered versions the vigor of the original film is
apparent."
--Alain Silver and James Ursini, The Vampire Film
"An impressive film. . . visually beautiful and understated."
--Welch Everyman, Outre Magazine
"Ganja and Hess was suppressed in the United States because it turned out not
to be the Hollywood genre film its producers, Quentin Kelly and
Jack Jordan, had commissioned Bill Gunn to make. Produced at a
time when black exploitation movies like Shaft and Superfly were blockbusters in the black community, Ganja and Hess was supposed to exploit black audiences with a black version
of the white vampire film. The film was withdrawn, however, when
Gunn went beyond the vampire genre and created an original work:
a densely symbolic film whose non-linear narrative is told from
three different points of view."
--Phyllis Rauch Klotman, Screenplays of the African American Experience
"This vampire film directed by Bill Gunn was recut after its release
and retitled Blood Couple, but was so altered it qualifies as a totally different film."
--John Stanley, The Creature Features Movie Guide |
