“Black Panther” Comes To Brooklyn With Director Q&A at BAM

The BAM Harvey Theater was sold out last night in anticipation of an advance screening of Black Panther, the mega-hyped Marvel movie set to open this weekend. Not only that, but the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, was on hand for a Q&A session after the screening.

Before the event, a line stretched down Fulton nearly to Ashland as excited attendees waited to get inside. Queues of elementary school students lined up behind teachers, eager for the event. Phones were turned over to security upon entry—a kind of mandatory electronic coat-check that’s become increasingly popular in the age of streaming and leaks.

Some audience members took full advantage of the occasion and dressed to the nines, in suits and dresses and in brightly colored kitenge and kente designs, with a few dashikis thrown in for good measure—all in celebration of the Afro-futuristic spectacle the blockbuster promised.

Much has been said already about Black Panther: it’s a tentpole project in the Marvel superhero universe, a blockbuster with a major budget, starring an almost entirely black cast, written by two black writers and helmed by a black director, focused on a mythical African country. The film has broken Marvel records for presales, is on track to break box-office records, and has dominated the conversation on social media for months. It’s a huge deal.

Suffice it to say: the movie is incredible. Even with the hype, and hopes as high as the balcony seats in the BAM Harvey Theater—which was packed to the rafters with fans—the movie easily exceeds expectations, delivering a fresh action-hero movie in a genre rife with cliché—and so much more. The story and the characters are moving, real, and relatable, the action is intense and the jokes are actually funny, not forced. And then there are the visuals—the film is simply gorgeous to look at, with breathtaking sets and spectacular costumes. No spoilers here, as the movie doesn’t open until midnight tonight, but take our word for it: go see Black Panther. Soon.

After the screening and a standing ovation, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler took the stage for Q&A moderated by the CEO of Okplayer, Abiola Oke. The first thing to come up? “You’re 31!” said Oke. Coogler, on his third movie after Fruitvale Station and Creed, is young for a director, and especially for one so skilled—and with an incredible career ahead of him.

Coogler credited his ability to turn out a fresh superhero movie, to the writers who shaped the comic book world of Wakanda for nearly 50 years—since well before he was born.”It has to deal with the continent, it has to deal with colonization, it has to deal with Africans controlling their resources,” he said of Black Panther. He cited “black writers getting custody of characters” as an important step for a comic started by two white, Jewish men from New York.

That was a business decision designed to bring an African-American audience to comic books, Coogler admits, but Marvel Studios was ready for a political film dealing with topics of colonization and the relationship between African-Americans and Africans, he said. The studio quickly agreed to let the Oakland-born director travel in Africa for research after he signed on to the project.

Jokingly wary of Spike Lee’s gaze on him from the front row as he spoke about his process, Coogler called to mind his childhood, and how identity conversations about being black in America had to be traced back to Africa through the cultural wound of slavery. That longing to connect to a tradition, and the inherent pain of the process, features in the character arcs of the movie.

But a reconnection also played out in Coogler’s trip to South Africa. Accompanying some young South Africans to a “ritual” in their township, he found himself at a house party, a barbeque amid generations of friends and family that was strikingly similar to the weekends he spent growing up in the Bay Area. Coogler saw the connection immediately, calling the event a homecoming. “Turns out, we’ve been African the whole time,” he said.

The conversation moved into the more technical aspects of Coogler’s job as a director, and how he managed to translate his intimate, collaborative style to a much bigger movie than he’s ever undertaken. Aside from their storytelling ability, Coogler values honesty in his actors. “I don’t want an actor to do something that’s trash because they’re too scared to tell me ‘Hey Coog, this isn’t gonna work!'” he said.

Admitting that directing is incredibly difficult, Coogler said he couldn’t have made the movie is he was distracted by the growing conversation about the film’s ramifications. “I can’t think of it like that,” he said. “I just work on making something that I’d like.”

He explained that the audience doesn’t relate to the director, but relates to the actors, so he trusts them to facilitate that interaction while he focuses on making the best movie he can. The talented filmmaker was quick to praise his cast, even if the night attentions were focused on him.

With a blockbuster superhero film opening this weekend, and limitless possibilities ahead of him, the inevitable question was asked: what’s next? Coogler laughed. “I’ve been working continuously since film school, which is a blessing,” he said. But for now, it looks like a little time off. “I just got married,” he laughed, “I think I’ll head back to the Bay and spend some time with my wife.”

If anyone’s earned a little vacation after a major project, it’s Ryan Coogler. But here’s hoping that like any good superhero, he doesn’t stay in hiding too long—because the people will be waiting.