Prof. Willmott talks about the Power of Film
Growing up in Junction City, Kansas, a town of around 20,000 people in the 1960s and ’70s, Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter, and professor of film at the University of Kansas (KU) Kevin Willmott quickly fell in love with movies. He has worked on film projects that focus on black issues, including “Ninth Street,” “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America,” “Bunker Hill,” “Destination Planet Negro,” “Jayhawkers,” “The Only Good Indian,” “The 24th” and more. He has also collaborated with director Spike Lee on films “BlacKkKlansman” “Chi-Raq” and “Da 5 Bloods.”
Located 24 miles southwest of Manhattan, Junction City was a great town to be introduced to films, as it had three movie theaters and a drive-in. Kids could exchange eight Coke bottle tops for entrance to Summer “Coke Top” movies, perhaps because the town was the first city west of the Mississippi River to distribute Coca-Cola. Many times, the films were double features. Features like Jason and the Argonauts or Westerns may have been playing, and Willmott went to every chance he could almost every weekend. Sidney Poitier’s films were breaking barriers for African Americans being portrayed on the big screen but were exploitative of Blacks; this had a big impact on him. He didn’t see Disney or kid movies, only grown-up films like Westerns, war movies, James Bond or maybe a comedy. “It was a great time to grow up and fall in love with movies,” Willmott reminisces.