Lionel Rogosin’s Dangerous Docufictions
10 Episodes
With his very first film ON THE BOWERY, Lionel Rogosin forever changed the art of nonfiction filmmaking in America, bridging narrative and documentary practices to portray life on New York’s skid row with an unvarnished authenticity and immediacy steeped in the spirit of neorealism. Born one hundred years ago, Rogosin was committed to fighting racism and fascism wherever they took hold. His convictions led him to South Africa, where he used his camera as a weapon to expose the injustices of apartheid in the docufiction landmark COME BACK, AFRICA. Tackling everything from the horrors of war (GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES) to the suffering and resistance that finds expression in African American music (BLACK ROOTS), Rogosin forged a singular body of work as radical in ideas as in form.
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1:05:00Episode 1On the Bowery
Episode 1
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1956 • United States
Starring Ray Salyer, Gorman Hendricks, Frank MatthewsLionel Rogosin’s landmark of American neorealism chronicles three days in the drinking life of Ray Salyer, a part-time railroad worker adrift on New York’s skid row, the Bowery. When the film ...
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1:26:00Episode 2Come Back, Africa
Episode 2
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1959 • United States
Starring Miriam Makeba, Vinah Makeba, Zachria MakebaOne of the bravest and most powerful political films ever made, Lionel Rogosin’s urgent indictment of racial injustice—filmed in secret in 1950s Johannesburg, South Africa—follows a young Zulu ...
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1:09:55Episode 4Good Times, Wonderful Times
Episode 4
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1965 • United States
GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES is director Lionel Rogosin’s urgent plea for humanity and his searing condemnation of war and fascism. For two years, Rogosin traveled to twelve countries to collect footage of war atrocities from their archives. To le...
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12:04Episode 5Oysters Are in Season
Episode 5
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1966 • United States
Something of an outlier (along with the companion piece HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM BANANAS?) in director Lionel Rogosin’s filmography, this comedic short features a series of satirical sketches performed by friends of the filmmaker.
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1:02:42Episode 6Black Roots
Episode 6
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1970 • United States
Director Lionel Rogosin’s fourth feature is a unique oral history that uses song and bittersweet stories to illustrate the difficulties of Black people living in 1970s America. The extraordinary cast—including Reverend Frederick Douglass Kirkpatr...
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1:18:16Episode 7Black Fantasy
Episode 7
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1972 • United States
An uncompromising, often discomfitingly frank look at the complexities of interracial relationships in America, this rarely seen documentary unfolds from the perspective of Jim Collier, a Black musician married to a white woman, as he expounds, w...
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10:20Episode 8How Do You Like Them Bananas?
Episode 8
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1966 • United States
Improvised slapstick fun ensues in the meeting between a banker and a pompous minister in this comedic short.
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1:24:57Episode 9Woodcutters of the Deep South
Episode 9
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1973 • United States
In the lush backwoods of Mississippi and Alabama, history is being made. Poor Black and white working people are trying to overcome the forces of racism to organize into cooperative associations and dispel the bonds of their economic captors—the ...
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41:15Episode 10Arab Israeli Dialogue
Episode 10
Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1974 • United States
ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE is the passionate final documentary from trailblazing filmmaker Lionel Rogosin, in which Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan engage in a frank, sometimes bruising conversation on the conflict betwee...
