‘The Harder They Fall’ Brings Black Cowboys and Jay-Z to the Oscars Race
Clayton Davis Where have all the Black cowboys gone? They are raging in the heart and mind of debut filmmaker Jeymes Samuel’s “The Harder They Fall,” an advantageous and stylistic western that could become one of the most popular flicks on Netflix and a populist selection in the major Oscar categories, which could include rapper Jay-Z.Brutal, violent and cool as hell, the blood-squibb-western, which opened the BFI London Film Festival, is a genre piece that will likely lend itself to comparisons to filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, which is perfectly apt. However, one of the questions is how the Oscars will respond to this film that’s seemingly unfamiliar to what Academy members have traditionally seen in the genre.