Marlene Clark and Duane Jones star as the eponymous lovers of Bill Gunn’s iconic vampire romance, one of the defining classics of the genre. After his erratic assistant stabs him with an ancient dagger, anthropologist Dr Hess Green (Jones) is afflicted with a ravenous craving for blood. When his assistant’s wife Ganja Meda (Clark) comes looking for her now dead husband, she and Hess fall passionately in love.
Kelli Weston, bfi.org.uk
Philadelphia-born actor/playwright/novelist/ director Bill Gunn, who died from encephalitis in 1989 aged 54, remains one of America’s most underrated creative forces. He was a fiercely individualistic talent whose work tackled issues germane to the African-American experience with an ingenuity and complexity that few could match. His acerbic screenplay for Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), for example, gets to the heart of white middle-class gentrification of economically deprived black areas in a manner that resounds today. Even in the more permissive climate of late-60s/early-70s American cinema, Gunn’s work was seen by the establishment as overly controversial: his feature debut Stop (1970) – a tortuous love-quadrangle – was slapped with an X certificate, before Warner Bros recut and finally shelved it. It remains unseen today, though there is hope that it will be unearthed.
The issue of frustrated expectations is relevant to Gunn’s best-known work, Ganja & Hess, which boasts its own dismaying history of troubled distribution. Its studio, Kelly-Jordan Enterprises, was expecting a straightforward blaxploitation cash-in after the success of William Crain’s lurid Blacula (1972), and was horrified when Gunn delivered nothing of the sort. Despite its rapturous reception at Cannes in 1973, the film was swiftly recut into a travesty of skinflick salaciousness, and boxed up under no fewer than six different titles including Blackout: The Moment of Terror and, even more terribly, Black Evil.
So what offended the studio so much? Well, even by elliptical arthouse standards, Ganja & Hess is a challenging work. It’s a bleak, kaleidoscopic vampire film in which the V-word is never once mentioned, and it substitutes bloody thrills for an oblique mélange of contemporary class, racial and religious commentary, Afro-European symbolism and sexual deviance. Its fragmentary structure and explicit (but never titillating) fusion of sex and death recalls the psychologically troubling work of Nicolas Roeg (in particular 1980’s Bad Timing) more than the Manichean social dynamics of standard blaxploitation fare.
The hazy plot follows the exploits of wealthy anthropologist Dr Hess Green (Night of the Living Dead’s Duane Jones), who becomes a vampire after his crazed assistant George Meda (a terrifyingly intense Gunn) stabs him with a dagger that carries an ancient African curse. Meda commits suicide, and Green falls in love with his haughty widow Ganja (the statuesque Marlene Clark), who soon becomes his vampiric partner in crime.
This troubling film is so visually rich and thematically complex that it’s not hard to see why Spike Lee co-opted it for his forthcoming Kickstarter-funded remake Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. If Lee attains half the disquieting power of Gunn’s film, he’ll do well.
Ashley Clark, Sight and Sound, March 2015
GANJA & HESS
Directed by: Bill Gunn
A Kelly-Jordan Enterprises, Inc. production
Released by: Kelly-Jordan Enterprises, Inc.
Associate Producer: Joan Shigekawa
Production Manager: Lou Pastore
Production Supervisor: Ed Dessisso
Assistant to the Producer: Janus Adams
Production Secretary: Janis Klein
Production Assistants: Scotti Lyew, Alan Skog, Lincoln Pasteur
Assistant Director: Anthony Major
Assistant to the Director: Roger Wall
Script Supervisor: Renoir Darrett
Written by: Bill Gunn
Lighting Director: Bill Lister
2nd Cameraman: Charles Blackwell
Assistant Cameraman: Thurman Faulk
Camera Assistant: James Walker
Best Boy: Dennis Murphy
Key Grip: Rex North
Still Photographer: Charles Stewart
Editor: Victor Kanefsky
Assistant Editors: Cynthia Castleman, Samuel Pollard
Properties Master: James Walker
Costumes Designed by: Scott Barrie
Wardrobe: Ceil Bryant
Make-up: Scott Cunningham
Hair Stylist: Annie De Mille
Titles Designed by: J. Sands
Music: Sam Waymon
African Instruments Played by: Nadi Qamar
March Blues Sung by: Mabel King
Musical Director: Ed Bland
Assistant Sound: Bill Meredith
Re-recording: Emil Neroda, The Sound Shop, Inc.
Sound Editors: Al Nahmias, Vincent Stenerson
Special Audio Effects by: Mike Lobel
Stuntmen: Tony King, Tommy Lane, Malcolm Drummond
Cast
Duane Jones (Dr Hess Green)
Marlene Clark (Ganja Meda)
Bill Gunn (George Meda)
Sam Waymon (Reverend Luther Williams)
Leonard Jackson (Archie)
Candece Tarpley (girl in bar)
Richard Harrow (dinner guest)
John Hoffmeister (Jack Sargent)
Betty Barney (singer in church)
Mabel King (Queen of Mythria)
Betsy Thurman (poetess)
Enrico Fales (Dr Green’s son)
Tommy Lane (pimp)
Tara Fields (woman with baby)
the congregation of Evangel Revivaltime Church
USA 1973
113 mins
IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS
Nosferatu (Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens)
Mon 17 Oct 20:50; Sun 13 Nov 15:50 (+ intro by Silent Film Curator Bryony Dixon); Sat 19 Nov 14:10
Frankenstein
Tue 18 Oct 20:50; Fri 28 Oct 18:20; Tue 8 Nov 18:20; Sun 27 Nov 13:00
The Skeleton Key
Wed 19 Oct 18:00; Mon 14 Nov 20:45
Meet the Monsters: A Season Introduction
Thu 20 Oct 19:30 BFI YouTube
I Walked With a Zombie
Thu 20 Oct 20:40; Tue 1 Nov 18:10
Creature from the Black Lagoon (3D)
Sat 22 Oct 18:15 (+ pre-recorded intro by Mallory O’Meara, award winning and bestselling author of ‘The Lady from the Black Lagoon’); Sat 29 Oct 11:40; Tue 1 Nov 20:50
In Dreams Are Monsters Quiz
Sun 23 Oct 19:00-22:00 Blue Room
Kuroneko (Yabu no naka no kuroneko)
Tue 25 Oct 20:45; Mon 31 Oct 21:00; Fri 18 Nov 18:15
The Fly
Wed 26 Oct 21:00
La Llorona
Thu 27 Oct 20:30; Mon 7 Nov 21:00
Celluloid Screams and Live Cinema UK presents: Ghostwatch + Q&A
Fri 28 Oct 20:20
Viy
Fri 28 Oct 20:45; Tue 8 Nov 20:50
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Sat 29 Oct 18:30; Wed 30 Nov 20:50
Candyman
Sat 29 Oct 20:45; Thu 17 Nov 20:50 (+ intro)
Nightbreed – Director’s Cut
Sun 30 Oct 15:10 (+ intro); Sat 12 Nov 20:35
28 Days Later
Mon 31 Oct 18:00 (+ Q&A with director Danny Boyle); Sat 26 Nov 20:45
Us
Tue 1 Nov 20:40; Sat 19 Nov 15:10; Tue 29 Nov 20:40
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Wed 2 Nov 18:10; Sat 26 Nov 20:40
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
Wed 2 Nov 20:45; Sat 19 Nov 20:45
Blacula
Thu 3 Nov 20:55; Sat 26 Nov 13:00
Cronos
Fri 4 Nov 18:30; Sat 19 Nov 12:10; Sun 20 Nov 18:30
Fright Night
Fri 4 Nov 20:50; Tue 22 Nov 20:40 (+ intro)
Possession
Sat 5 Nov 20:20 (+ intro by author Kier-La Janisse); Sun 27 Nov 15:30
Ganja & Hess
Mon 7 Nov 18:00; Sat 26 Nov 15:20
Inferno
Wed 9 Nov 20:40; Sat 26 Nov 18:20
The Entity
Fri 11 Nov 17:55; Tue 15 Nov 20:30
Def by Temptation
Wed 16 Nov 18:10 (+ intro); Sat 26 Nov 18:10
Jennifer’s Body
Sun 20 Nov 15:15; Mon 21 Nov 18:00; Fri 25 Nov 20:45
Pontypool
Mon 21 Nov 20:30; Sun 27 Nov 12:20
Under the Shadow
Wed 23 Nov 20:40; Tue 29 Nov 18:10
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Thu 24 Nov 20:40; Mon 28 Nov 18:10
Pet Sematary
Fri 25 Nov 18:15; Mon 28 Nov 20:40
Good Manners (As Boas Maneiras)
Sun 27 Nov 18:10; Wed 30 Nov 20:25
IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS EVENTS
City Lit at BFI: Screen Horrors – Screen Monsters
Thu 20 Oct – Thu 15 Dec 18:30-20:30
Beyond Nollywood World Premiere: Inside Life + Q&A with director Clarence A Peters
Sat 29 Oct 14:00
Matchbox Cine presents House of Psychotic Women
Sat 5 Nov 17:50
Son of Ingagi + Panel Discussion
Wed 9 Nov 18:10
Live Commentary with Evolution of Horror, Brain Rot and The Final Girls
Sat 19 Nov 18:00
Big Monster Energy
Tue 22 Nov 18:30
BFI SOUTHBANK
Welcome to the home of great film and TV, with three cinemas and a studio, a world-class library, regular exhibitions and a pioneering Mediatheque with 1000s of free titles for you to explore. Browse special-edition merchandise in the BFI Shop.We're also pleased to offer you a unique new space, the BFI Riverfront – with unrivalled riverside views of Waterloo Bridge and beyond, a delicious seasonal menu, plus a stylish balcony bar for cocktails or special events. Come and enjoy a pre-cinema dinner or a drink on the balcony as the sun goes down.
BECOME A BFI MEMBER
Enjoy a great package of film benefits including priority booking at BFI Southbank and BFI Festivals. Join today at bfi.org.uk/join
BFI PLAYER
We are always open online on BFI Player where you can watch the best new, cult & classic cinema on demand. Showcasing hand-picked landmark British and independent titles, films are available to watch in three distinct ways: Subscription, Rentals & Free to view.
See something different today on player.bfi.org.uk
Join the BFI mailing list for regular programme updates. Not yet registered? Create a new account at www.bfi.org.uk/signup
Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email