The art of cinema was nearly 100 years old when Kasi Lemmons wrote her script and picked up a camera to create the stunningly beautiful and substantive “Eve’s Bayou.” And yet, in 1997, her debut feature film was only the second time in the history of the film industry that a black woman filmmaker was given a nationwide mainstream theatrical release.
The first, Julie Dash’s “Daughters of The Dust” was mostly relegated to the arthouse scene because the assumption was that a period piece about an early 20th century Gullah family was too much for the average movie-goer to consume.
“Now there are lots of black women directors,” Lemmons said. “We are in a good time and I think things are changing – but at the time we were a very rare, small group of people that were able to do this. So just the art itself was very important.”
“Eve’s Bayou” broke ground with its commercial and critical success. It launched the careers of Meghan Good and Jurnee Smollett and solidified Samuel L. Jackson’s leading man status.
Lemmons came to town on Saturday to discuss the film as the first of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ Community Conversations – a series of programming to build buzz around their upcoming world premiere of “Fire Shut Up In My Bones.” The Terence Blanchard Opera is based on the Charles Blow memoir of the same name. Lemmons is the librettist for “Fire Shut Up In My Bones.”
After a screening of “Eve’s Bayou,” presented in partnership with Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series at Winfred Moore Auditorium on the campus of Webster University, St. Louis American Video Director Dawn Suggs led a conversational talk that was mostly about the film. The talk also included insight on Lemmons’ process as a filmmaker and her first time as a librettist with “Fire.”
“How were you able to get it made?” Suggs asked.
“I wrote the script and the script was a very powerful thing in terms of I could get a meeting,” Lemmons said. “I could get into a lot of different rooms with that script. People wanted to meet me. Not everybody wanted to make the movie, that’s for sure – that took 100 meetings, I’m sure. People turned it down. They would say, maybe if you got a really big star – like Samuel L. Jackson – attached to it. I got Samuel L. Jackson, and people still turned it down.”
She imagined the story of the affluent Creole family that had familial ties to a legend of an enslaved woman who bore several children to her master and was ultimately freed and gifted land along the Bayou.
Then while conducting research on “Eve’s Bayou” for the sake of accuracy, Lemmons found a story about a woman from along the Cane River that was strikingly similar to the one she created.
“I was like, ‘wow’ this is wild – that somehow I had connected to this story.’ I picked up the book for my entire crew.’
“It’s so interesting that you were intuitively tapping into something that was real – and it feels that way,” Suggs said.
The story is set in 1962 southern Louisiana and the secrets within this seemingly functional and affluent family. Lemmons taps into the secrets of the Baptiste family.
“The gray area of humanity is what I was interested in – flawed characters are the most interesting,” Lemmons said. “I was interested in damaged people. That felt real to me.”
Jackson saw the short film companion piece for her “Eve’s Bayou” script entitled “Dr. Hugo,” starring actor Vonde Curtis Hall. Jackson thought the “Eve’s Bayou” role was perfect for him to enter leading man waters.
Even with Jackson, who had just done “Pulp Fiction,” tied to the project, it was such a tough sell that by the time she got the greenlight to make the film, Meghan Good – her original Eve – had outgrown the role.
They persevered with Smollett as Eve – and several film television and stage actors such as Debbi Morgan, Lynn Whitfield, Vonde Curtis Hall, Lisa Nicole Carson and Diahann Carrol – and “Eve’s Bayou” became a critical and commercial success, with late famed film critic Roger Ebert naming it the best film of 1997.
Her work on “Eve’s Bayou” has lent itself to “Fire” – based on the story of a gifted young man growing up misunderstood while secretly suffering through traumatic abuse in his small town of Gibsland, Louisiana. Though for her adaptation is a different process.
“Adapting is a specific art – taking what’s there and finding the movie in it,” Lemmons said.
“When Rob and Terence came to me with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and asked me if I wanted to write the libretto – I had never written a libretto. I kind of always wanted to do one. His book was not apparent how to adapt it. I know one thing that is always an ‘in’ for me in the process and that’s a wonderful character.”
The character of Charles or “Charles Baby,” ultimately moved her.
“As soon as I have a connection with a character that moves me, that’s my way into the process. I write usually from character,” Lemmons said. “I wrote from what I thought his struggles were and how to make that sing. How to make that musical.”
On Friday, February 1, Lemmons will discuss the book that inspired the opera in a talk presented in partnership with Left Bank Books and the Saint Louis University Library Associates. She will have conversation with Jonathan Smith, vice president for Diversity and Community Engagement at Saint Louis University. The talk will get underway at 7:30 p.m. at Pere Marquette Room & Sinquefield Stateroom, DuBourg Hall Saint Louis University, 221 Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 63103. For more information, visit www.opera-stl.org or call (314) 961-0644.
