"SIDNEY POITIER BLACK AND WHITE"

EXPLORES THE RISE OF SIDNEY POITIER IN THE 1960s ALONGSIDE  THE  AMERICA  CIVIL RIGHTS  MOVEMENT  AND  RACISM IN  HOLLYWOOD

"SIDNEY POITIER BLACK AND WHITE"

by Philip Powers

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2020 INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP POWERS ABOUT SIDNEY POITIER BOOK

Q: Why did you decide to write a book about Sidney Poitier? You're a Music Producer, right.
A: After I finished working with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2017 I did several more jobs as a Music Producer - even as a director of multi-camera music performances - before taking down my Music-Producer-For-Hire shingle. I'd been writing words all my life. Long before I made a name as a Producer I was writing stories and keeping a daily diary. In 2018 I decided to make writing my full time pursuit. I wrote a draft of a book on every film of Alfred Hitchcock. I wrote dozens of essays on the greatest films that popularly feature on the lists of the so-called Top Hundred Films Ever. I wrote the first draft of a book on Michael Crichton, dissecting his early books and films. I wrote a draft of a book about the "first films" directed by major actors, producers and directors. Finally in December of 2019 I focused on the Michael Crichton book for two months. Making a second draft of that. Then, while I had a few people proof-reading and commenting on Michael Crichton Nothing Can Go Wrong in March, April and May, I decided to re-read and widen the scope of my Sidney Poitier book. As I made the changes to the "Michael Crichton Nothing Can Go Wrong" manuscript as the corrections came in, I needed something else to work on after uploading the corrections from the book editor each day. I started adding tiny changes to the Sidney Poitier book as I proof read my manuscript.
Q: "Sidney Poitier Black and White" jumps around quite a lot. It doesn't deal with different parts of his life chapter by chapter.
A: I know. Of course. I realise this. I could have made the Poitier book fit into the "pocket" definition of a biography and put all of the information relevant to that chapter in that chapter. But that's not how we live life. What I learned, for example, in my university years wasn't learned completely in those three years. In fact, what I learned as a child - 7-years-old to 19 - has more to do with me as a human being when I better fit into being 40-60 years old. To understand me as a middle-aged man has more to do with my life as seven or seventeen than when I was seven to seventeen. That is how my Poitier book works. The reader is going to think it is chronological because it fits that format most of the time. And then when it jumps to something else while the reader is thinking about the person's formative years, suddenly the book references events which happened as an adult which complete the feelings and understanding of the child. They shouldn't be surprised.
I'm guessing that critics are going to dislike the structure of "Sidney Poitier Black and White" because it doesn't fit conventional thinking. But I'm writing for people who want to read books that aren't conventional. My book may start at A, then quickly go to E-H in Poitier's life, then C-D, explore J-S, explore T-Z and end at G-I and finish with B.
Q: So you think your structure is going to be recognized as easy reading for average readers?
A: Absolutely... It is easy. It just jumps around. If they understand that their life is made up of millions of moments which will only make sense when they are dealt with much later in life, this book it illustrates that.
It is like when young Sidney on Cat Island is caught in a culvert which allows sea water to come into a little lake-like area on the island. He walks until his chin is below the water line. Then swims a little further. It is dangerous. There's a door which blocks the sea water or lets it in. Poitier gets caught in the channel. Scared out of his life he tries to make it back to safety, realising he's been stupid. I think it is a metaphor for what happens to him when he tries to become an actor. He ventures into life in L.A. looking for work as a black actor. There's barely any hope that he'll succeed. Years go by when he can't survive. He opens a restaurant and years later closes a restaurant. He gives up because he's overwhelmed by his lack of success. He has not been able to survive any year as an actor alone. He struggles for seven or eight years before he suddenly finds success. So where do you tell the story of Poitier in his foolhardy exploration of the dangerous channel in which he could have died? In telling the part of his life on Cat Island? Or later in the book when it describes something similar when he's an adult - a struggling actor.
So, that was the plan. "Sidney Poitier Black and White" jumps around to make it alive. It is a life discovered as you discover information. Bits about Spencer Tracy are revealed in the Stanley Kramer chapter. And vice versa. Bits about Martin Luther King, Jr. are in Harry Belafonte's chapter.
I see life like a symphony. A symphony has many themes. It has first subject and second subjects. It may have development in the corresponding minor key as it progresses. If the symphony is in G the relative minor key is E minor. If it's in A, the minor key is F#.  As a work develops a composer might take motifs from the first two subjects which may not be fully developed until the climax in the Fourth Movement. A phrase the listener heard referred to at the start finds its culmination in the climax which describes everything musical which the composer was working towards. That's how I approached writing a book on a famous figure like Sidney Poitier. His life story is in his books "This Life" and "The Measure of a Man." That's where people should go to discover how he lived and found his opportunities. "Sidney Poitier: Black and White" is essentially a book about black and white tensions in the late fifties and the 1960s when Poitier found fame as an actor.
Q: Has it been reviewed?
A: Not yet. I would love the book to be reviewed as a proper book, not a self-published book. I hope that publication by 1M1 Digital Pty Ltd helps that happen.