The only Elvis Detroit needs to recognize is Elvis Mitchell.
The former Highland Park resident and Wayne State graduate started his film review career here at the Michigan Chronicle, under the leadership of the late Samuel Logan, back when the paper had a viewing room at its former location at Ledyard, he reminisced in a recent phone interview with the Chronicle.
His love of Blackness and film eventually landed him a plumb role as one of the New York Times’ (NYT) film critics in 1999, where his personable and knowledgeable takes on cinema garnered him praise of his reviews from fans and from people in the movie industry itself. Henry Louis Gates called him “the most powerful Black film critic in history, full stop.”
While working at the NYT, Mitchell also wrote—sometimes simultaneously—for the Detroit Free Press, the Village Voice in New York City and the Independent Film Channel (IFC). He was also a guest lecturer at Harvard and served as the film critic for NPR’s Weekend Edition. Mitchell was in contention for the chief critic job at the Times—but another candidate was chosen.
Mitchell ended up quitting the gig in 2004 and kept moving to the West Coast in the midst of many offers, he recounted. His pop-culture-and-arts radio show, “The Treatment,” which he started in 1996, gave him a soft landing. And he landed such positions as the curator of a new series, Film Independent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He was also a guest lecturer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
Oh—and he was a co-producer of “The Black List” documentary series, which is about the leading historical and current Black leaders and legends in media and snagged a NAACP Image Award in 2009 for his work.
Three years ago Free Press Film Festival approached him to be a part of their event, but the pandemic shut that collaboration down—but only temporarily. When they approached him again to be a part of this year’s event, Mitchell found out that his alma mater was a partner. The festival asked if he would come back and teach at Wayne State.
“It was an unbeatable offer to come back and talk about my film and to teach at my alma mater. It’s an unbelievable combination of events that I found really exciting.”
So, on April 27, Mitchell debuted his newest non-fiction ode to the long influence of Black people in 70s films, “Is That Black Enough For You?!?,” and will begin his tenure as the Bob Allison (Allesee) Endowed Chair in Media at Wayne State University College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts beginning in May 2023.
Mitchell said that he plans to use his tenure as chair to do the same that he’s done at Harvard and at UNLV: talking about and dissecting Black film and its impact on the larger culture.
“So often, Black film is not taught, or it’s treated like an ‘other.’ But it’s part of cinema worldwide.” He said that his film is an effort to correct the notion that Black culture—and, by extension, Black films—are given “a short shrift.”
“Black folks are treated as if we have no real import. My entire career and my whole life is to make sure that we understand the impact our contributions have had. It’s incumbent on me—and anyone who does the work seriously as an educator of the culture—to be mindful of the Black impact on the [greater] culture, not something specialized or only something for Black History Month.”
The Chronicle turned the conversation to that cliché question always posed to front-facing people in the media: what did it feel like for Mitchell to be on the other side of the camera?
“It was shockingly really inspiring and a lot of fun,” he said with a chuckle. “What you come to understand is that, when you’re making a movie, everybody is pushing to make the project as good as it can be. Which is a very different way of creating than writing, which tends to be solitary work.”
Regaling the joys of directing “Is That Black Enough For You?!?,” Mitchell not only shared his marvel at the tools available to create the cinema he’s critiqued and taught during his career, but also the connections he’s made who ended up helping him bring his documentary to the screen. And, those connections including legendary filmmakers Steven Soderbergh (“Contagion,” “Erin Brockovich”) and David Fincher (“Seven,” “Gone Girl”), helped finance the film.
Mitchell told Soderbergh about the idea for “Is That Black Enough For You?!?” over dinner, and Mitchell expected the director to blow him off, which happened to him over the past 20 years.
However, “Soderbergh said, ‘That’s a no-brainer. I can cash-flow that for you,’” Mitchell recalled. “I said, ‘that’s great, but what does that mean?’ He said, ‘I can set this up so you don’t have to worry about selling it and you can get paid as you make it. Once the cash-flow is set up, you can make a living and get your movie made.’ Then, he brought on Fincher.”
The first scene that Mitchell shot for the documentary was an interview with Harry Belafonte, who died on April 25. Soderbergh was the cinematographer.
But Mitchell’s experience with Soderbergh and Fincher also speaks to Mitchell himself and the goodwill he’s engendered as a critic. His reviews come from a compassionate, professional place, even when his reviews are negative. He doesn’t try to shade or outright dog out a filmmaker or otherwise try to show off his knowledge with too-clever-by-half critiques. His reviews engender a love for the medium of cinema and, in the process, give the reader a more thoughtful way to approach a work. Everyone appreciates kindness—including directors.
And Soderbergh and Fincher accepted Mitchell as their own.
“They accept me as a director—not just a person who directed a film—but a director. They’ve been incredibly encouraging; they asked me about my next project!”
And now Mitchell is coming home, documentary in tow and with an awaiting chairmanship and his family, who are still here. When asked how he felt about it—especially coming home to a changing Detroit, he said, “It’s really weird. Detroit always felt to me like this place that’s full of possibilities that always felt like something big is going to happen. Detroit is so often dealt with in a reductive way, and that’s also how Black culture in general is dealt with. It’s either this or that.
“But Detroit is a complicated place. It’s an enormous city, Downtown has clearly blown up. I grew up in Highland Park, and it has yet to be rehabilitated. But there are so many parts of Detroit, like Southwest or Southeast Detroit, that have been abandoned that deserve to be given a new lease on life. The city fascinates me. There’s so much creativity in Detroit.”
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