For three days starting on Sept. 10, the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill showed a double feature of films highlighting the avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra. The double feature was composed of 1974 cult classic “Space Is the Place” and 1980 documentary “Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise.”
The screenings were held in conjunction with the 18th annual New Mexico Jazz Festival, which puts on dozens of performances across New Mexico throughout September. Guild owner Keif Henley described the two films as a “natural fit for Jazz Fest.”
“They give you a taste of something that’s not being spoon-fed to you,” Henley said.
Sun Ra got his start in the jazz scene of 1950s Chicago and became known for his eclectic artistic sensibilities, according to the National Endowment of the Arts. While his music is most easily classifiable as jazz, he drew from a vast array of sounds to create an entirely new sonic language.
Besides jazz, Sun Ra’s work combines elements of funk, rock, R&B, big band and experimental music styles. Sun Ra is also widely known for his elaborate visual style, according to the Endowment.
The experimental film “Space Is the Place,” directed by John Coney, employs a nonlinear storyline to tell the biography of a fictionalized Sun Ra who comes to Earth from outer space with the goal of establishing a Black utopia on another planet. He lands in Oakland, California in hopes of finding people who will join him on his journey.
During his time on Earth, Sun Ra has to contend with the intrinsic racism of America, which furthers his cause of creating a new Black society.
“Space Is the Place” touches on issues faced by the Black Power movement, which emerged as a major cultural force in the years prior to the film’s production. Sun Ra’s character is surveilled by the FBI, and during the film’s climax, he survives an assassination attempt — both of which were acts of disruption that groups like the Black Panthers had to contend with daily.
In a key scene, Sun Ra visits a group of young Black people who gather together for both recreation and organization. The walls of their meeting place are adorned with posters of Angela Davis and Malcolm X.
They question whether Sun Ra is real or not, to which he responds: “I’m not real. I’m just like you. You don’t exist in this society. If you did, your people wouldn’t be seeking equal rights … We are both myths. I do not come to you as a reality. I come to you as the myth, because that’s what Black people are.”
Sun Ra’s message feels radically ahead of its time, and places the film within the ranks of Black American iconography.
“Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise,” directed by renowned music documentarian Robert Mugge, features interviews with Sun Ra and members of ensemble the Arkestra, as well as several of Arkestra’s performances. Through the interview footage, additional aspects of Sun Ra’s artistic vision and personal philosophy are revealed.
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He provides his thoughts on a wide range of topics, including the commercialization of music, government, religion, structural racism and the collective Black American consciousness. In one of the interview segments, he relays his outlook on the way Black people are positioned within history and culture by white society, and on what gets left out when a group of people are not allowed to write their own narrative.
“History is only his story,” Sun Ra says as he stands in a museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. “You haven’t heard my story yet … My story is not a part of history.”
As a musical and visual artist, Sun Ra was at the forefront of developing the genre and style that is now known as Afrofuturism.
The Tate Modern art museum in London defines Afrofuturism as “a cultural aesthetic that combines science fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African American experience and aims to connect those from the Black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry.”
Sun Ra is a pioneer for Afrofuturism because of his fascination with Space Age aesthetics, his commitment to his own self-mythologization and his overarching belief that Black people must have self-determination.
His influence can be seen in the work of many 21st-century artists. The albums and music videos of Janelle Monáe and FKA twigs, the novels of Colson Whitehead and 2018 blockbuster “Black Panther” are all inspired by the visual and musical sensibilities of Sun Ra.
The radical, ahead-of-its-time nature of Sun Ra’s work will surely continue to influence artists across mediums. As Henley said, “as the title says: It’s a joyful noise.”
Elijah Ritch is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. They can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
