A former writer and correspondent for THE DAILY SHOW, the star of Barry Jenkins’s MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY, and the producer and host of the HBO series “Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas,” comedian and actor Wyatt Cenac is also a passionate cinephile who, unsurprisingly, has strong insights into what makes for good screen comedy. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Cenac sits down with film scholar Michael B. Gillespie to discuss his selection of favorites, which include button-pushing racial satires from Spike Lee and Robert Downey Sr., graceful cinematic charades by Jacques Tati, and trailblazing works by Ousmane Sembène and Horace Ové.
Actor and comedian Wyatt Cenac discusses his formative moviegoing experiences with film scholar Michael B. Gillespie.
Directed by Basil Dearden • 1962 • United Kingdom
Othello is translated to the world of sixties London jazz clubs in Basil Dearden's smoky and sensational All Night Long. Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex (Pau...
Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1963 • Senegal
This groundbreaking short film, which won first prize at the 1963 Touris Film Festival in France, was the directorial debut of Ousmane Sembène.
Restored in 2013 by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and Éclair, in association wit...
Directed by Jacques Tati • 1967 • France
Starring Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Georges Montant
Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PLAYTIME. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-y...
Directed by Jacques Tati • 1971 • France
Starring Jacques Tati
In Jacques Tati’s TRAFIC, the bumbling Monsieur Hulot, kitted out as always with tan raincoat, beaten brown hat, and umbrella, takes to Paris’s highways and byways. In this, his final outing, Hulot is employed as an auto company’s di...
Directed by Robert Downey Sr. • 1969 • United States
Starring Arnold Johnson, Laura Greene, Buddy Butler
The most popular film by Robert Downey Sr. is this offbeat classic about the antics that ensue after Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, his voice dubbed by a gravelly Downey), the token black man ...
Directed by Horace Ové • 1976 • United Kingdom
Starring Herbert Norville, Oscar James, Frank Singuineau
Widely regarded as the first Black British feature film, Horace Ové’s vivid, absorbing portrait of the second-generation immigrant experience follows teenage Tony (Herbert Norville), the Londo...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1981 • France
After returning to Los Angeles from France in 1979, Agnès Varda created this kaleidoscopic documentary about the striking murals that decorate the city. Bursting with color and vitality, MUR MURS is as much an invigorating study of community and diversity ...
Directed by Wong Kar-wai • 2000 • Hong Kong
Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk
Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery abo...
Directed by Spike Lee • 2000 • United States
Starring Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith
With this blisteringly funny, unapologetically confrontational satire, writer-director Spike Lee examined the past, present, and future of racism in American popular culture, issuing a daring pr...
