Space Is The Place [Sun Ra Film 1974]

One of the best 'cult films' ever made in my opinion and one that defies description or easy genre categorisation which is perhaps why it never receives the kudos or praise it deserves. It was only after watching Space Is The Place that the music of Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Arkestra really made any real sense.

Who was Sun Ra?

Sun Ra was allegedly born Herman Poole Blount on May 22nd 1914 and returned to the stars on May 30th 1993. He was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, one of the earliest UFO contactees, a poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances.
He himself said he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn.

Taken from the official website by the director Jim Newman:

In 1971 American producer Jim Newman appproached John Coney, a producer/director at a public television station KQED in San Francisco with a proposal for a thirty minute performance documentary on the Sun Ra Arkestra. Sun Ra immediately saw the film as an opportunity to make a statement about the conditions of black people on planet earth - and as a powerful medium for his music as a vehicle for lifting them out of their collective misery.
Production began in 1972 with filming and recording the Arkestra, a spaceship landing, a visit to an Egytptian tomb and the creation of a mythic celestial planet derived from Ra's interpretation of passages from "The Book Of Urantia" (The Urantia Book a strange proto-New Age cosmological tract originated in Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1924 and 1955. Its authorship remains a matter of speculation) as realised in Golden Gate Park. After many months of editing, screen writer Joshua Smith was hired to work on the story line and turn the project into a coherent narrative film.

Wikipedia entry:

Space Is the Place is an 82-minute film made in 1972 and released in 1974. [1] [2] It was produced by Jim Newman, directed by John Coney, written by Sun Ra, Joshua Smith and features Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A soundtrack for the film was released on Evidence Records.

Official website:

http://www.outerspacewaysinc.com

Wikipedia Entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Is...

• Category

  Film & Animation

[Hannah Johnson]

29 people don't belong in space

[horbergus]

Pathetic that this was the top-rated comment

[Olga Zero]

Happy birthday

[Kohntarkosz]

Also, remember the era this movie was made. Blaxploitation films were popular. The whole idea was to invert the usual trope of black people being portrayed as "corrupt", so that the white people in the film are either working for the crime syndicate, corrupt politicians, or incompetent law enforcement can't figure out how to stop organized crime. So it's up to a brother (or in Pam Grier's case, a sister) to sort shit out and take care of business.

[Kohntarkosz]

Actually, it's not racist. If you watch the movie carefully, there's a scene where Ra says "blackness" is not about skin color, but rather about having been oppressed. Most people on planet Earth have been oppressed and I think Ra's message was for everyone, not just dark skinned people.

[3BlackPharaoh3]

because it is stated with decpetivve civility does that make it better? If anything that is what makes it worse. Trying to sweep the shit under the rug yet we all still know it's there

[calin4thewin]

Yeah but do they explicitly state that? Like, oh we were annoyed and tired with black people, so we came here to create a nice white paradise, a white utopia :)

[Ife Ford]

Yout got to fill up the PeacePipe with KayaHaeb and and smoke before listerning to Sun Ra Music. You got to get high and meet Sun Ra on Satrun. 

[Reece H]

there are thousands of movies about an "awesome planet full of white people".

white people arent necessarily white its white culture and black culture, not just skin colour

[Lutz grishlut]

Genial, visionair, vorausschauend. My love to Great Sun Ra & His Arkestra! lkkyulll.

[AHNET THREEHUNDREDSIXTYDEGREES]

PAUL HARVEY YOU RE SO FREAKIN COOL! PEACE BE UPON YOU! I AM AHNET AND I LUV AFRIKANS!!