Director's Influence on Foxy Brown

Director's Influence on Foxy Brown

Jack Hill's film is essentially a sequel to Coffy which he wrote and directed in 1973 and also starred Pam Grier. Foxy Brown is a film about revenge which stands upon the Women's Power Movement and has become a symbol of a new heroine in film that places the female as the central character who resolves the conflict which is thrust upon her world. The film is shot simply with the framing showing exactly what is happening in the scene. Hill uses extreme angles in order to make Foxy feel towering. One example is when she has her brother cowering in the corner of his apartment. Hill shoots Foxy from Link's low point of view to show her as towering above him as he appears pathetic.

Hill also uses violence in order to tell his story. We watch as Foxy uses a sawed-off shotgun to kill the dope dealer in the bedroom. We witness the head of the dealer being blown apart and it puts us in the center of the violence—we are participants in it. This brings us into the reality of these violent and murderous circumstances—we, as the audience don't get to escape it. This happens again in the scene where Foxy claws out the dealer's eyes with coat hangers and then sets the other on fire with gasoline and matches.

Hill utilized the blaxpoitation genre in order to make money in an untapped market. This, while earning money, created controversy as he sexualized the black female form and created a great degree of violence all for the ability to earn box office dollars. Right or wrong, the film did what Hill and American International Pictures set out to do: earn money.

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