American Fiction
Is the novel always better than the book? This could easily have been a question cleverly slotted into the movie American Fiction — and it is, kinda, in a meta sort of way — but the film also does an awesome job addressing: book festivals, literary awards (and their judges), what constitutes a “Black book,” and the marketing/pandering-to-audience/money rigmarole of the publishing industry.
American Fiction is a fantastic (and super, super funny) send-up of the publishing/book world. And like the smartest novels, the film isn’t just “about” those things. In the end, it’s actually a lovely film about imperfect families. There were so many clever and on-point lines that part of me wishes I was taking notes. But that’s weird, so instead, I just soaked it all in, and I even unwittingly started clapping at the end. (Awkward?) My daughter and I both loved it. (If you’re in Charlotte, go see it at The Independent Picture House!)
Btw, American Fiction is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. I haven’t read it, so I can’t tell you if the book or film were “better,” but given that his novel The Trees is one of the smartest and subversive (while also being oddly funny) books I’ve read in a long while, I’m hopeful that there is a segment of the entertainment industry that is willing to move beyond “let’s make a movie out of this bestselling book just because even if it stinks we know people will pay to see it” — a proposition that somehow demands us to determine if one is “better.” In fact, Everett said this to a NPR reporter as he described a small change he’d observed in the industry: “…in the last four or five years as this generation of young black artists are popping up, the people interested in making and adapting work has changed. It used to be 60-year-old white guys looking to option something. And now it’s these young people who are interested in art and not commerce.”
ART AND NOT COMMERCE. (And let me repeat that American Fiction was hilarious. Art doesn’t need to be depressing and dour!)
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