How can Film convey Time?

 Danez Smith’s poem “Dinosaurs in the Hood” is a fascinating examination of the role that time plays in conveying stories, specifically through filmmaking.  In his work, Smith envisions a movie in which Black communities fight dinosaurs and emerge triumphant.  As I read and listened to Smith’s work, I began to consider the way in which time plays a role in how we as viewers understand and respond to a person’s story.  Those involved in the production of a movie are given, roughly, a two-hour time frame to convey the intricacies and details of a story.  Smith compares the ways in which that brief and important period of time can convey either an uplifting or degrading story about the Black community.  In his poem, time is of the essence.  From the opening scene of his imagined film to its ending, Smith focuses on how the brief movie-going experience can convey a much longer, deeper, and more impactful story.

In the second stanza of his poem, Smith writes, “Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays / with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives, / the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.”  These lines suggest that White filmmakers who attempt to understand the plight of Black folks, or recreate their experiences on screen through metaphors, fail to truly convey the extent of their lived experiences.  Smith envisions a Tarantino film as lessening the story of the Black boy and fitting it neatly into a short and sweet metaphor, when in reality, the story is far more complex and real.  

 

In contrast to the erasing of time and narrative that a Tarantino production might entail, Smith highlights the realities of Black life that he wants the movie to convey, writing, “I want a scene where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene / where the corner store turns into a battle ground … I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors / with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses.”  These scenes are vivid and realistic - settings like a cop car, a corner store, and a front porch allow viewer to gain insight into a community and the ways that they live.  These scenes allow for a much richer and lengthier narrative to be conveyed, and force audiences to consider tangible details and events and the way they exist over time, rather than reflecting on a metaphor on what it means to be Black.

 

At the end of his poem, Smith writes, “& no one kills the black boy. & no one kills / the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason / I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy / on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless / his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.”  The culmination of Smith’s poem returns to his initial image of a young Black boy sitting on a bus, holding a toy dinosaur, and seeing a dinosaur outside his window.  This scene, which according to Smith is the most important of the film, allows audiences to understand the ways in which young Black children have endless dreams, ambition, and boundless potential.  The limitless and infinite nature of this moment is crucial to the audience’s paralleled understanding of time and narrative.  The end of Smith’s poem calls on readers to consider the ways in which a story extends beyond the confines of a single film or poem.