''Space Is the Place'' is an 85-minute

Afrofuturist Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultur ...

science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974.official website for "Space is the Place"
fictionalized treatment based on Sun Ra's ideas and philosophy, featuring his Arkestra, filmed in 1972 and 1973. It was directed by John Coney, written by

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...

and Joshua Smith, and features Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack ...

was released on

Evidence Records Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...

Background

During the late-1960s and early-1970s, Sun Ra and his ensemble made several forays to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. In 1971, Sun Ra taught a course, "The Black Man in the Cosmos", at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. 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.

Plot

Sun Ra, who has been reported lost since his European tour in June 1969, lands on a new planet in outer space with his crew, known as "the Arkestra", and decides to settle African Americans on this planet. The medium of transportation he chooses for this resettlement is

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

. He travels back in time and returns to the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

strip club where he used to play piano with the name "Sonny Ray" in 1943, where he confronts the Overseer (Ray Johnson), a pimp-overlord, and they agree on a game of cards for the fate of the Black race. In present time (the early 1970s), Ra disembarks from his spaceship in Oakland and tries to spread word of his plans. He meets with young African Americans at an Oakland youth centre and opens an "Outer Space Employment Agency" to recruit people eager to move to the planet. He also agrees with Jimmy Fey (Christopher Brooks) — an employee of the Overseer — to arrange radio interviews, a record album, and eventually a concert that will help him dictate his message. As the card game between Ra and the Overseer is played, and it becomes clear that the Overseer is winning, Ra's plans to recruit local black youth for his new utopian space colony suffer setbacks. Many of them are suspicious of Ra, accusing him of faking his outer-spatial origin as a gimmick to boost his record sales. He is kidnapped by a team of white

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

scientists who threaten him with violence, desperate to learn the secrets to his space-travel technology. As Ra's concert rapidly approaches, he is saved by three local teenagers, who escort him to the music hall just in time. At the concert, as the Arkestra play their signature

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

, the NASA scientists appear and attempt to assassinate Ra with a pistol. One of the teenagers jumps in front of the bullet, saving Ra's life, and as he is bleeding out on the stage, Sun Ra waves his hand and the teenager, his friends, and Ra himself all disappear from the music hall. One by one, black people across Oakland vanish into thin air and reappear on Ra's spaceship. Jimmy Fey resists leaving Earth on Ra's spaceship, but Ra doesn't let Fey leave; Ra takes Fey's "black parts" with him onto the spaceship, leaving his "white parts" behind on Earth. Fey, now

acting white In the United States, acting white is a pejorative term, usually applied to black people, which refers to a person's perceived betrayal of their culture by assuming the social expectations of white society.

, leaves the Overseer, who loses the duel. As Ra's spaceship launches off into the cosmos and music begins playing, a

montage Montage may refer to: Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films * Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing * ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film Music * Montage (music), or sound collage * ''Montage'' (Block B EP), 201 ...

implies that Earth is destroyed in its wake.

Production and release

''Space is the Place'' emerged from ''Dilexi'', an "experimental art series" produced by Jim Newman and directed by John Coney. Wishing to build on his forays into filming avant garde music, Newman recruited Coney to film concert footage of Ra and His Arkestra; Coney then hired Seth Hill to act as cinematographer. Filming of Arkestra performance footage was followed shortly by a scant number of loosely scripted dramatic scenes. Hill was then asked to create "a story to tie all the disparate elements together." To this end, Hill enlisted the help of Joshua Smith, a friend from film school whose fascination with "the culture of pimps and whores" would result in the blaxploitation themes underpinning those scenes in the film not involving Sun Ra. 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 Plexifilm was an independent DVD label and film production company co-founded by Gary Hustwit (formerly VP of Salon.com) and Sean Anderson (formerly Director of DVD Development of The Criterion Collection) in 2001. Plexifilm produced original film ...

. 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 The Bright Light Social Hour is an American psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas. The band is composed of Jackie O'Brien on bass and vocals, Curtis Roush on guitar and vocals, Zac Catanzaro on drums, Mia Carruthers on keys and vocals, and Jua ...

's album '' Space Is Still the Place'' (2015).

Interpretation

Ra's greatest adversary in his quest is the Overseer, an incarnation of evil in the Black community who poses himself to be a community leader and a man of charity, but who, in fact, is a tool of the white

power structure In political sociology, but also operative within the rest of the animal, animal kingdom, a power structure is a hierarchy of competence or aggression (might) predicated on power (social and political), influence between an individual and other ...

. On the other hand, Jimmy Fey is a representative of black people in the

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

industry and

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

; he means well, but his intentions have been co-opted by the normalizing, status quo-reinforcing forces of white-led

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

. It has also been suggested that ''Space Is the Place'' can be interpreted as Sun Ra's response to the

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, with whom Ra was engaged in a performative struggle for the imagery of the future of the black race. Daniel Kreiss writes:

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.

References

External links