Visualizing rhythm, transforming relationship: jazz and Seven Songs for Malcolm X

Abstract

‘Visualizing rhythm, transforming relationship: jazz and Seven Songs for Malcolm X’ is the first of two self-sufficient but interconnected articles positioned, collectively, at the crossroads of three areas of study in need of (re)new(ed) theorization and scholarly analysis: independent film-maker John Akomfrah's rich body of work; Afro-diasporic thinker/leader Malcolm X as central subject/‘body’ of (documentary) film representation; and the cross-cultural and cross-/trans-national aesthetics of black documentary film(making) theory and practice. Informed by the question ‘what does Seven Songs for Malcolm X's do for black documentary aesthetics?’, the two articles interconnect this documentary film's production practices and ‘informing logic’—drawn from black aesthetics and Soviet-Armenian film art—in. order to critically examine how Akomfrah un-fixes Malcolm X's representation.In so doing, article one suggests that Akomfrah attempts to transform the way in which jazz music rhythm is visualized in film, while article two, ‘Using framing to un-fix meanings in John Akomfrah's Seven Songs for Malcolm X: early black photography and Sergo Paradzhanov's aesthetics’, shall suggest that Akomfrah attempts, simultaneously, to cross-fertilize within his mise-en-scène still photography and cinematography. The way in which Akomfrah engages with these tools of representation/distinct styles of thinking (black) documentary aesthetics (i.e. jazz, photography, and cinematography) is central to the interconnectedness of the two articles. Therefore, by way of a conclusion to the project, article two shall use these tools of representation/distinct styles to answer the question 'what does Seven Songs for Malcolm X do for black documentary aesthetics?'