Space Is the Place is an Afrofuturist science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974. It was directed by John Coney, written by Sun Ra and Joshua Smith, and features Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A soundtrack was released on Evidence Records.
Background
During the late-1960s and early-1970s, Sun Ra and his ensemble made several forays to California. In 1971, Sun Ra taught a course, "The Black Man in the Cosmos", at University of California, Berkeley. Over the course of these California visits, Sun Ra came to the attention of Jim Newman, who produced the film Space Is the Place starring Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and based, in part, on Sun Ra's Berkeley lectures. According to assistant director Tom Bullock, the "seemingly death-defying existential leaps in logic and continuity" that resulted from the film's fragmented production were resolved in post-production by editor Barbara Pokras.
Two cuts exist of the film. The first, sometimes referred to as "Sun Ra's edit", is abridged to 64 minutes; for decades following its limited initial release, Space is the Place could only be found on VHS in this form. The second, uncut version runs 82 minutes, and was made available for the first time in 2003, when the film was re-released by Plexifilm. Following another lapse out of print, both cuts of Space is the Place were released together for the first time by Harte Recordings in 2015.
The film inspired The Bright Light Social Hour's album Space Is Still the Place (2015).
Interpretation
It has been suggested that Space Is the Place can be interpreted as Sun Ra's response to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, with whom Ra was engaged in a performative struggle for the imagery of the future of the black race. Daniel Kreiss writes:<blockquote>While he does not condemn the party by name, Sun Ra ultimately finds limited value in terrestrial community programs, an allusion to the Panthers, and posits that only the band's use of technology and music will liberate the people by changing consciousness.</blockquote>
See also
- List of Afrofuturist films
- Africanfuturism
- List of American films of 1974