Gordon Parks, 1912 - 2006.

Gordon Parks, who captured the struggles and triumphs of black America as a photographer for Life magazine and then became Hollywood's first major black director with The Learning Tree and the hit Shaft, died Tuesday, a family member said. He was 93.

Polly Anderson for the AP.

Gordon Parks was the first black director to make a major studio film, and his The Learning Tree (1969) was a deeply felt, lyrically beautiful film that was, maybe, just too simple and honest to be commercial.

Roger Ebert.

Though Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Sweet Sweetback (1971) have been credited with kicking off the genre, MGM's seminal Shaft (1971) probably set a more precise grid for much of what followed. Shaft gives us a sexy, practically omnipotent hero (Ebony model Richard Rountree); a lewd score ("who's the black private dick that's a sex machine for all the chicks?"); and the hero's precarious balancing act between whitey's world and the ghetto.

Gary Morris, Bright Lights.

A Gordon Parks Timeline. Photos.

Online listening tip. Phil Ponce for PBS in 1998.

Posted by dwhudson at March 7, 2006 5:47 PM