4 Little Girls

4 Little Girls
DVD release cover
Directed by	Spike Lee
Produced by	Spike Lee Samuel D. Pollard
Music by	Terence Blanchard
Cinematography	Ellen Kuras
Editing by	Samuel D. Pollard
Distributed by	HBO Documentary
Release date(s)	July 9, 1997 (U.S.) September 6, 1997 (Canada)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$130,146 (U.S. sub-total)

4 Little Girls is a 1997 American historical documentary film about the 1963 murder of four African-American girls during the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. It was directed by Spike Lee and nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Documentary".^[1]

The incident is the subject of the 1964 song "Birmingham Sunday" by Richard and Mimi Fariña. The song was used in the opening sequence of the film, performed by Mimi's sister, Joan Baez.

4 Little Girls premiered Wednesday, June 25, 1997 at the Guild 50th Street Theatre in New York City. It was produced by 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, Lee's production company, and Home Box Office (HBO).^[2]

Production

Lee first became interested in making a film about the Birmingham bombing as a student at New York University in 1983. He read a New York Times Magazine article about the incident and was so moved, he wrote to Chris McNair, the father of victim Denise, asking for permission to tell her story on film. McNair politely turned down the young, aspiring filmmaker's offer.^[3] "I was entering my first semester at N.Y.U. So my skills as a filmmaker were nonexistent, and at that time, Chris McNair was still hesitant to talk about it," Lee said in a 1997 interview with Industry Central's The Director's Chair. "I believe timing is everything. So it took ten years of Chris thinking about this and ten years of myself making movies for this to come together."^{[citation needed]}

According to McNair, one reason he changed his mind about supporting Lee's film idea ten years later was the depth and precision of Lee's research, saying on the eve of the film's release that "[i]t's very important that this be done accurately and correctly. In all his research he showed that he was objective and seeking a broad section of opinion. I'm a stickler for the facts."^[2]

Lee also said his original plan was for the film to be a dramatic reproduction of the incident, but he later decided that that format would not be the best way to tell this important story.^[3]

Once funding was secured, Lee went down to Birmingham with a very small skeleton film crew. His goal was to make the families feel as comfortable as possible. Two major contributors who made up that crew were Ellen Kuras, as the Director of Photography, and Sam Pollard, as the producer/editor. Lee developed a relationship with Ellen Kuras on an HBO project called Subway Stories, an anthology of short films compiled by Jonathan Demme. Lee's film never made the final cut due in part to conflict between Lee and Demme, however, the working partnership between Lee and Kuras was born.^[4]

Kuras said of her desire to shoot 4 Little Girls, "I was really interested because my background is in political documentaries ... I always felt that one of the reasons that I had got into filmmaking was that I wanted to use my craft to be able to say something about the human condition, however I could, in my own humble way. For me this was an opportunity to make a small contribution."^[4]

Lee's partnership with Sam Pollard began on Mo' Better Blues. Pollard was recommended to Spike as a replacement for his long time collaborator Barry Brown, who was busy directing his own film. Pollard initially turned down the initial opportunity because he was busy working on his segments of Eyes on the Prize, but eventually he came around, and has since become one of Lee's most prolific collaborators. Despite the fact that their first few films working together were fiction, Pollard's background was in documentary. Pollard was a key factor in guiding the structure of the film. "Basically it was to help with the conception of the structure, to edit it ... We spent a lot of time screening dailies together. We could come to 40 Acres at 7a.m., and we would spend three hours a day screening dailies for two weeks straight ... We talked, selected all the material that we liked, and I started working on the structure in the editing room. Spike was asking if he needed narration and what the structure should be. I basically said the structure should be that there are parallels-the family, the history of the community—and then they come together on the explosion."^[4]

Reception

Box office

Originally, the film was to air first on HBO, but after seeing the final product, the production team decided it was important to release the film in theatres before running it on television.^[2] 4 Little Girls opened in American theaters on July 9, 1997 and closed on October 2, 1997. It grossed $130,146 from a total of 4 theaters. In its opening weekend it earned $13,528 from a single theater, which was 10.4% of its total gross.^[5] It cost approximately $1 million to make, funded by Home Box Office (HBO).^[3]

See also

• American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)
• American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
• Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement

References

Footnotes

Sources

External links

• 4 Little Girls at the Internet Movie Database
• 4 Little Girls at AllRovi