Only in a career as pioneering and storied as Gordon Parks‘ could an achievement like “first Black director of a Hollywood studio movie” fall into the second paragraph.
Yet, Parks’ significance as a photographer and renaissance man does often overshadow his film efforts. Sure, fans may know him as the director of the original “Shaft” (1971), but this virtuoso visualist offered the 20th-century film canon much more in “The Learning Tree” (1969) and “Leadbelly” (1976).
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