TORONTO, Ontario — Cord Jefferson wanted to turn Percival Everett’s “Erasure” into a film script after 50 pages. Halfway through, he noticed Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the book’s intellectual protagonist. He knew he wanted to direct it by the time he was completed.
Cord Jefferson, the 41-year-old TV writer of “Succession,” “Master of None,” and “Watchmen,” began work on his directorial debut, “American Fiction,” almost immediately. Similarly, following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, “American Fiction” quickly became the festival’s breakout smash, establishing Jefferson as a prominent new voice in film.
Monk (Wright) is a disgruntled author whose agent (John Ortiz) tells him his writings — the most recent of which is a rewriting of Aeschylus’ “The Persians” — aren’t “Black enough.” “I’m Black,” he says, “and this is my book.”
Monk, played by Wright with sardonic precision and amusing contempt, writes as a drunken lark, a book meant to spoof the kinds that sell and appeal to white audiences’ perceptions of Black people. Under the pen name Stagg R. Leigh, he scribbles a thug life trauma porn named “My Pafology” that, surprise, sells and is bought for movie rights.
“All of the conversations that the book was having were conversations I was having with my friends and had been having for decades,” Jefferson, who worked as an editor for Gawker before shifting to TV, explained in an interview.
“I worked as a journalist for eight or nine years before working in television,” he explained. “I was having the same conversations with Black colleagues in both professions: Why are we always writing about Black misery, trauma, violence, and pain?” Why do people expect this from us? “How come this is the only thing we have to offer culture?”
Cord Jefferson wanted to turn Percival Everett’s “Erasure” into a film script after 50 pages.
“American Fiction,” which will be released in theatres on November 3 by MGM, is a humorous, jazzy take on Black representation in books and films that delights in criticizing clichés and identity politics while yearning for something more nuanced — something like “American Fiction.”
“One of the main themes is how we see ourselves as unique, specific individuals, and how the world tries to put us into little boxes and sand away all the things that make us unique and special,” Jefferson explained.
Jefferson mentioned during the TIFF premiere that he enjoys films like “12 Years a Slave” and “New Jack City.” However, Jefferson, citing “a lack of imagination when it comes to what Black life looks like,” believes that other films on the spectrum should also exist.
“I feel like Jewish people get ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Annie Hall,'” Jefferson explained.
While Woody Allen’s film is a nod to “American Fiction,” clear analogies are more difficult to find for such a lighthearted but cutting satire. Tracee Ellis Ross, s also appear, as does Issa Rae, who plays the author of “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.”
“One of the most exciting things has been in the test screenings when we ask people, ‘What does this film remind you of?'” Jefferson adds. “Several people have said that it reminds them of a comedy or a film.”
Cord Jefferson wanted to turn Percival Everett’s “Erasure” into a film script after 50 pages.
Jefferson, who grew up in Tucson, Arizona, wrote on some issues addressed in his video in a 2014 article titled “The Racism Beat.” In it, he discussed the significance of authors from marginalized groups contributing their unique perspectives to journalism and the difficulties of not being defined by them. Jefferson, who authored essays about donating a kidney to his father and being biracial, began his career as a writer for “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” before moving on to drama and comedy programs. He received an Emmy for co-writing the “Watchman” episode “1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” with Damon Lindelof.
Jefferson claims that directing a picture was not a lifetime desire. He hadn’t attended film school, so he didn’t think it was possible until he spoke with a friend directing an episode of “Master of None” who had studied business rather than film.
“I realised that all you need to do is have a vision and be able to articulate it to other people,” Jefferson adds.
He believes that “American Fiction” is difficult to categorize, indicating he is on the right track.
“This is my first film, and I’m excited to find my voice,” Jefferson adds. “I don’t know my voice yet, but I’m working on it.” People mentioning that the film feels unique makes me think I’m on my way to finding my voice.”
SOURCE – (AP)
