Compensation
United States • 1999
Director
#1274Criterion Collection →Synopsis
A poignant portrait of Deaf African Americans and the complexities of love at both ends of the twentieth century, Zeinabu irene Davis’s film is a groundbreaking story of inclusion and visibility. In dual performances, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks play an educated dressmaker and an illiterate migrant in 1910s Chicago, and a resilient graphic artist and an endearing librarian living in the same city eight decades later. Employing archival photography, an original score blending ragtime and African percussion, and lyrical editing, Davis deftly intertwines the two couple’s stories, in ways both tender and tragic. COMPENSATION is a landmark of American independent cinema that confronts the social forces and prejudices that hinder love.
Synopsis
A poignant portrait of Deaf African Americans and the complexities of love at both ends of the twentieth century, Zeinabu irene Davis’s film is a groundbreaking story of inclusion and visibility. In dual performances, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks play an educated dressmaker and an illiterate migrant in 1910s Chicago, and a resilient graphic artist and an endearing librarian living in the same city eight decades later. Employing archival photography, an original score blending ragtime and African percussion, and lyrical editing, Davis deftly intertwines the two couple’s stories, in ways both tender and tragic. COMPENSATION is a landmark of American independent cinema that confronts the social forces and prejudices that hinder love.
Credits
Crew
DirectorZeinabu irene Davis
WriterMarc Arthur Chéry
CinematographerPierre Désir
ComposerAtiba Y. Jali, Reginald R. Robinson
EditorDana Briscoe, Zeinabu irene Davis
Cast
John Earl Jelksas Arthur/Nico Jones