COMMENTS ON WHITE SHADOWS, BLACK DREAMS BY CATHLEEN ROUNTREE
May 20, 2020
White Shadows, Black Dreams, a screenplay by Justin Swingle is a
look at the all-but-forgotten African American heroine from the 19th and 20th centuries, Sarah Breedlove, a.k.a. Madam C.J.Walker. In several decades of studying women's issues, I had never come across this remarkable woman before Mr. Swingle made her the protagonist in his rich and worthy screenplay in which he displays an amazing feminist perspective.
This is the story of a black woman born into poverty immediately after the emancipation of slaves and her victorious rises to personal greatness, economic success, and public contribution as the seminal self-made female millionaire.
Mr. Swingle's dialogue brings his characters alive with sometimes heartbreaking veracity, but always with a warm sense of humor about human foibles. May we see many more stories like this inspiring woman.
— Cathleen Rountree
ON CATHLEEN ROUNTREE
For her books of interviews, Cathleen met and interviewed such well-known artistic and public figures as Doris Lessing, Isabel Allende, Gov. Ann Richards, Betty Friedan, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Ellen Burstyn, Mary Travers, Gloria Steinem, Marion Woodman, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gloria Allred, Molly Haskell, Andrew Sarris, Jacob Lawrence, Gwen night, and Dolores Huerta, among many others. She is often referred to as "the Barbara Walters of interview books."
Her passion for movies has led to work as an archivist for the San Francisco International Film Festival and to writing for their festival catalogue, to being appointed as a board member of the Santa Cruz Film Festival, and to her own column "Femme Film Reflections" on www.HeadlineMuse.com. Her film commentaries and analyses are published in a variety of venues, including The San Francisco Jung Library Journal, on www.cgjungpage.org, and in the forthcoming anthology on the Argentine director Eliseo Subiela, Under Other Skies: The Films of Eliseo Subiela. (ed. Nancy J. Membrez). Her next book about how to "read" a film for deeper meaning and the potential transformative nature of movies will be published in 2003.