Twenty years ago a film thrust a new, young black filmmaker center stage. The film was She's Gotta Have It. The filmmaker was Spike Lee. Born six years after the death of Oscar Micheaux and less than 250 miles away from his final resting place, Spike Lee seems to have entered a different world than the one Oscar knew.

Is it really so different? It seems now is an appropriate time to take a measure of the progress that we have made as an industry. And so Boxoffice® asks the question, what is the state of black film?

Film historian Patrick McGilligan, author of Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only, asserts, “Hollywood is still a white man’s club excluding black people, most minorities, women too, from the most important executive decisions, and from the highest creative positions of writing and directing.”

Spike Lee revolutionized independent black filmmaking in the 1990s, achieving an iconic name for himself almost to the detriment of his cause: to promote black filmmakers, black actors, and black stories that were not being told.

McGilligan vouches for Lee's influence. “Spike is a hero. He will go down in film history books for doing it his way: serious, important, independent, personal films about black, and white, America.”

Of course, there were notable films that dealt with African Americans before Lee's career materialized, Roots and The Color Purple among the most rewarded titles, In the Heat of the Night one of the most influential. What Spike Lee did was bring a sense of black empowerment to his films, not only to his characters but to the black director as an artist—all the while never losing sight of the injustice.

Spike Lee's outspokenness eventually led to a reputation of being an angry filmmaker, a claim that film critic and Lee-supporter Roger Ebert felt inclined to reject. In an essay on Do the Right Thing (Criterion.com) Ebert compared Lee's style to “a certain detached objectivity” found in his work. “His subject is the way race affects the way lives are lived in America.” American culture may be directly related to the issue.

Explains Patrick McGilligan, “[Spike Lee] is perhaps more highly regarded outside America. In Paris, film professors always ask about him, 'What’s going on with Spike Lee? Why hasn’t he won the Oscar?' Spike’s problem is that he was successful so young, he is already somewhat taken for granted in America.”

While it's commonplace to criticize Lee's style, it's hard to deny that this 1982 film student from Atlanta, Georgia, opened the door for many other black filmmakers to gain mainstream acceptance. John Singleton certainly benefited from this influence. With Boyz N the Hood, he became the first and only African-American filmmaker to ever earn an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Now in 2007, with more creative freedom and anti-bigotry restrictions than ever before (Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been ending more careers than the Betty Ford Clinic) what is the current state of black filmmaking in Hollywood and on the independent scene? In terms of overall success, the horizons look bright. When it comes to acting, black actors have truly excelled in performances and in gaining the respect—no, the adoration—of the industry.

In recent years, Academy Awards have been awarded to Cuba Gooding Jr., Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, and Jamie Foxx, three of which were in the lead categories. Chris Rock hosted the 2005 Oscar ceremony, while one year later Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman, and Paul Beauregard won an Oscar for the best original song—no fooling--“It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”

The Wayans family has also made industry waves, at least in terms of shrewd business. In 2000 Scary Movie became the most successful film ever directed by an African-American film maker, which grossed over $156 million and led to some notable sequels. Keenan Ivory Wayans' In Living Color would eventually groom two of the top current worldwide superstars in Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx.

If Spike Lee ever dreamed of a mainstream openness to black culture, even the gritty side that white audiences were uncomfortable with, the first decade of the new millennium was a vision realized. Spike Lee hinted at this reluctance to accept acceptance in Bamboozled, in which both black and white fans laughed off racism together as a modern age minstrel show hit the network airwaves. In recent years, Spike Lee's career has stalled with live action features (She Hate Me) and seems to have found a new path in social activism, producing critically acclaimed documentaries like Four Little Girls and When the Levees Broke.

Where does this leave the rest of the creative black community? It's almost as if Spike Lee has thrown down the gauntlet to new-age black filmmakers, to proceed beyond the black empowerment that he preached and to create a new era of socially relevant black films. However, the peak achievements noted have all been in the field of acting or in producing. Where is the artistic vision that Spike Lee pioneered? Where is that strong authoritative voice that demands the attention of the industry?

That voice is clearly heard from white directors and from Latino directors, such as Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth), Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel). Meanwhile, the most important black films of the year are directed by white filmmakers like Bill Condon (Dream Girls), Michael Mann (Ali), and Taylor Hackford (Ray). Why is it that more black directors and writers are not actively involved in creating the vision, as opposed to supporting the production?

Narcel Gerard Reedus, writer, director, and Assistant Professor of film at the University of Texas at Arlington, attributes the problem to a lack of leadership. “Independent black film has been in a state of suspended animation for the last three to five years. Black filmmakers have not taken full advantage of the digital technology that has made the art/business of film more accessible to the masses. Every year there are break through digital video features that come out of Sundance and by and large indie black films are nowhere to be found.”

Others attribute the problem to a lack of opportunity for strong black filmmakers to break into the business. Trae Briers relates, “The studio system only wants a handful of black directors in their roster. And yes, there are hundreds of independent black filmmakers across the nation, but Hollywood has always been a small community, and if the studio system doesn’t want you to be a part of their club, then we can’t join.”

Like any race or nationality, it seems the odds are stacked against new black directors as well as new white directors, and the decision on who gets to direct a socially-relevant movie is determined by who has the desired qualifications and the bankability. Russell Williams II, a professor at the American University's School of Communication and a two-time Oscar winner for sound work on Glory and Dances with Wolves, brings a sobering perspective to the issue.

“People tend to forget that in Hollywood it's show business, as in the business of show.” Williams relates that the studio system rarely gambles on an unknown or at least unproven talent and that the directing duties involved in film production are a part of a much “larger realm, with political protocol and a basic economic equation.”

Elaborating on why more powerful black celebrities don't take on directing roles, Williams states that it's a respect for the industry, as serious actors appreciate the “major responsibility of directing and are not lured in by the tabloid show spirit, red carpet interviews, DVD commentaries, and limo rides.” What does directing a film really involve? “Hell!” he calls the job of directing a movie, a state of constant trepidation, not to mention a “year and a half of no sleep.”

The job of director involves many individual processes including, among other intricacies: taking input from actors, answering a barrage of questions from the studio, choosing locations and costumes, handling the editing, the lighting, the sound, organizing test screenings, responding to negative feedback, developing unique ideas on how to use the camera, working with advertisers and marketing professionals, among countless other duties. “The reviews, the nominations, the box office power is what everybody sees at the end,” Williams laments. “But if you get out of the process alive, you are just happy to be done.”

Williams explains that a director must prove him or herself a talented business manager in addition to being an artist, with the ability to complete shooting in a day or risk handling bad blood between you and the studio executives. The more problems that develop, the studio will simply want to release or bury the unfinished film so they can cut their losses and move on, “Meanwhile the director has lost all of his negotiating power,” and presumably, his one chance to make it in the business.

The problems involved in an influential black director rising to the top of the ranks are certainly well documented. However, the filmmakers and critics interviewed for this story did agree on a few basic principles that would serve as a formula for making a successful, crossover film that will hit a note with all mainstream moviegoers: a director with a strong story-telling voice and a multi-cultural approach to filmmaking that unites America as a reflection of its current state. “If we as a community want to survive,” Trae Briers says, “We need to open our eyes to the other communities around us, and the best place to show that is in the movies.”

Diversity is, “Where America is headed,” Patrick McGilligan comments, leaving us to wonder where the next generation of multi-cultural black voices is coming from.

It seems the entry-level position in show business for aspiring black directors is in the music video industry, which, very much unlike Hollywood, is actually dominated by black directors. We have seen a few success stories of black music video directors transitioning over into film. The difference in standard? While McGilligan credits the genre's creative diversity and Brier's the domination of hip hop (“our music, our vision”), Russell Williams II suggests, “A music video is three to five minutes of camera work, where you don't have to tell a story, versus 90-120 minutes of character development.”

The success of black filmmaking in the music industry illustrates the challenge of avoiding professional typecasting. Black music video directors direct more music videos But what African American gets to direct socially relevant multicultural films these days? Why, of course, the ones who have a proven track record of doing so!

Russell Williams II well remembers Denzel Washington, both having worked on Glory in 1989. Could Denzel Washington be that crossover talent as he is patiently breaking into directing, having created his vision of injustice and progression in 2002's Antwone Fisher, and once again taking up the directing helm for this December's The Great Debaters?

Washington is a favorite among many, though Williams expresses disappointment that more black or white moviegoers did not warm up to Antwone Fisher, teaching the sad lesson that sometimes the “most positive instances of black film making don't necessarily make money.”

The future of black film making could very well lie in the hands of today's ambitious African-American auteurs who are steadily working their way into mainstream respectability. Directors like Antoine Fuqua, with films like Training Day and Tears of the Sun on his growing resume, and who is inspired by the works of Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa over more polarizing black stars of contemporary times.

Director Tyler Perry is another favorite, a playwright turned filmmaker, who already has over 13 directing credits to his name including Daddy's Little Girls and Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Lance Rivera, director of The Cook Out, will work with powerhouse actor Terrance Howard in The Perfect Holiday, while Maurice Jamal's Prodigal Son retread in Dirty Laundry made some noise back in August.

Kevin Hooks has built an impressive resume directing numerous dramatic TV series including Lost and NYPD Blue, as has Carl Franklin who has directed episodes of HBO's Rome and FX's The Riches just as well as he wrote for and directed Denzel Washington in Devil In A Blue Dress. Other names to look out for include music video director turned filmmaker Felix Gary Gray (The Italian Job and Be Cool) and Bryan Barber, the brains behind the musical Idlewild.

It took several decades for Golden Age Hollywood to apologize to the black community, just as it took at least one for contemporary Hollywood to adjust to Spike Lee's aggressive creativity. The experts agree that the future of black film making looks promising, the impending writer and actor strike notwithstanding, as even stagnant waters can be flushed back to life with the right product—the right creative mind.

Russell Williams II praises Kasi Lemmons work on Talk to Me and hopes enough Academy members get to screen the film, since the film has united black and white moviegoers alike to eruptive applause in test screenings. Film historian Patrick McGilligan feels it's a tremendous time for growth mainly because of “ancillary markets” and that black filmmakers are no longer “restricted to black subject matter.”

Narcel Reedus predicts a “rebirth coming that will subvert the status quo of what we see at the movies,” while aspiring director Trae Briers, whose In Your Eyes has recently received national distribution, sets his sights high. “It’s one thing to not have a big budget, but at least we as a community of black filmmakers can pay attention to the stylistic details a movie needs. Most of the time, it’s the same old genre shots, and studios are looking for that 'edge'. I as a black filmmaker want to show that I am a student of the arts, that my storytelling will have depth.”

Spike Lee's Bamboozled is an underrated satire in the same facetiously righteous spirit as Network, and one of the last great anti-racist films. Pierre Delacroix, the fictitious network executive from Bamboozled posthumously declared, “People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.”

If the next generation of black filmmaking proves successful in uniting America through the power of cinema, then it will be a life worth living and a movie ticket worth paying for.