The Rediscovery of “Naked Acts” Expands Film History

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Black Artists,Independent Films,Reviews

Richard Brody reviews the 1996 film “Naked Acts,” directed by Bridgett M. Davis and starring Jake-ann Jones, Patricia DeArcy, and Ron Cephas Jones.

Davis’s protagonist, Cicely , called Cece, is the twentysomething scion of a Black acting dynasty—the daughter of a former blaxploitation star named Lydia Love and the granddaughter of a grande dame of the theatre . Cece is long estranged from her mother, and the movie starts with her going to confront Lydia—who now runs a video store—about the traumas of her childhood. Davis draws past into present, rapidly delivering backstory both via flashback and via Cece’s voice-over.

For the elder woman, the dignity of art and of the artist are paramount, and she couches her moralistic attitudes in terms of the need to challenge racist assumptions with artistic “integrity.” For Lydia, the quest for respectability is as limiting as the prejudices that it’s meant to debunk, and, after this argument, she takes Cece back to live with her.

 

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