{"id":12328,"date":"2019-07-29T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=12328"},"modified":"2019-07-29T15:44:15","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T22:44:15","slug":"skateboarding-symbolism-in-the-last-black-man-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/skateboarding-symbolism-in-the-last-black-man-in-san-francisco\/","title":{"rendered":"Skateboarding Symbolism in The Last Black Man in San Francisco<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) sits next to a skateboard a<\/span>t the beginning of The Last Black Man in San Francisco<\/i><\/strong>, and for the rest of the film, which follows Jimmie and best friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) as they try to regain ownership of Jimmie\u2019s childhood house, the board rarely leaves his side. It\u2019s as much a partner to him as Mont is. In fact, Jimmie\u2019s skateboard is a representation of his identity \u2014 as a black man, as a young black man, and as a young black man from San Francisco \u2014 and part of a larger visual metaphor for the gentrification taking place in the Bay Area.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within minutes of that first shot of Jimmie and his board, Last Black Man <\/i>dives into an operatic sequence of him and Mont riding the board through San Francisco. It\u2019s an organic and authentic piece of cultural world-building that truly places us in the physical space of the film, as San Francisco\u2019s skateboard culture has deep history<\/span><\/a>. In the sequence, Jimmie \u201cbombs\u201d a hill, one of the most iconic visuals in skateboarding history. The skateboard is set up as a mode of transportation, release, and expression for Jimmie. It\u2019s inherent to him, an idea communicated through language of the sport\u2019s past.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last Black Man <\/i>then juxtaposes Jimmie\u2019s skateboarding next to white folk touring the city on another mode of transportation: Segways. As Jimmie looks out the window of his childhood home, about a dozen people wearing helmets (Jimmie doesn\u2019t wear one while riding his skateboard) look up toward him, as though he and the house are on display in a museum \u2014 framing the white folk as emotionally removed gazers and gawkers. It\u2019s a jarring, explicit showcase of gentrification and presents skateboarding, losing out to Segways, as part of the dying culture in San Francisco.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of why Jimmie feels lost and so attached to the idea of his childhood home. As he reconnects with childhood friend Kofi (Jamal Trulove) through Mont, Jimmie asks him if he still skates, which Kofi doesn\u2019t. Violence later befalls Kofi, and Jimmie says something key. \u201cThat could have been me.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

That line introduces into the subtext the idea that skateboarding helped Jimmie stay away from violence. Last Black Man <\/i>features a cameo of famous street skater Daewon Song, and that\u2019s exactly his story<\/span><\/a>: of seeing friends lost to violence and needing to stick to skateboarding to stay away from that. It\u2019s the story of so many skaters across the country, shown in films like 2018\u2019s Oscar-nominated documentary Minding the Gap<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in attempting to get back his old home, Jimmie also has to hide his skateboard \u2014 leaving it with a homeless man on the streets \u2014 from his father, James Sr. (Rob Morgan), when visiting him to talk about the house. We see James Sr. watching an unknowing Jimmie from a window as he leaves the skateboard behind \u2014 and when their conversation turns to the house, James Sr. quickly snaps, both saying that he saw what Jimmie did with his board and rejecting the idea of him living in that house. <\/span><\/p>\n

Amidst everything, the film also drives home the point that gentrification can cause immense pain across generational gaps. James Sr. has moved on to survive, so both Jimmie\u2019s board and the house \u2014 remnants of the past \u2014 are sources of anger for him. Jimmie, on the other hand, has held on to survive, and because of that, he and his father can\u2019t bond. They tell themselves different stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story of skateboarding in the film is one that director Joe Talbot tells so impressively. Much of skateboarding\u2019s connection to themes of gentrification, displacement, and loss lies in the subtext, never over-explained. Whether it be with tranquil images of Jimmie holding his board as he hitches a ride on the back of a delivery truck, epic visions of him bombing hills, or smooth tracking shots of him riding his board on the sidewalk as people in his neighborhood walk by, the film ties the physicality of skateboarding to what it\u2019s like to live in and travel through San Francisco.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Last Black Man in San Francisco <\/i>is about the culture and the people who are being lost to the city, pushed out by it, and it\u2019s breaking Jimmie. That\u2019s why, at the end of the film, Jimmie snaps his board. But he still carries it with him. It\u2019s a part of his identity, even if broken. As Jimmie says about San Francisco to two white women complaining about the city: \u201cYou don\u2019t get to hate it unless you love it.\u201d The same goes for skateboarding. \"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
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Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) sits next to a skateboard at the beginning of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":12329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-on-the-marquee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}