Sun Ra - Space is the Place (1974)

Synopsis: A jazz innovator for decades, Sun Ra created a sound that could easily have come from his home planet--Saturn. The legend around Sun Ra is bizarre and complex, and it's one element in John Coney's... A jazz innovator for decades, Sun Ra created a sound that could easily have come from his home planet--Saturn. The legend around Sun Ra is bizarre and complex, and it's one element in John Coney's insane 1974 film SPACE IS THE PLACE. Conceived as a vehicle for Sun Ra and his music, the film blends 1950s sci-fi, '70s Blaxploitation, and Ingmar Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL in an intense, provocative mix. The story involves Sun Ra, an intergalactic messenger sent to Earth to spread a message of peace and love, and to take disaffected and downtrodden black Americans to his astral utopia. He finds opposition, however, in the Overseer, a white-suited devil who cruises around in a huge Cadillac, and always has a woman on each arm. That the Overseer, like Sun Ra, is black underscores the film's point that sometimes oppression can come from within. The director's cut revives the issues dealt with in the film and highlights Sun Ra's career. The innovative combination of social commentary and psychedelic musical space adventure captures the funkiness of the counter-culture blossoming throughout the 1960s. [More]

Starring: Sun Ra

Starring: Sun Ra