You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure
Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester
-Bobby Womack, Across 110th Street
It is impossible to talk about Barry Shear’s Across 110th
Street without making reference to Bobby Womack’s blistering theme song. Like
Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, 110th Street kicks off with that
funky bassline and the unmistakeable echoey wak-chika-wak
guitar of early 70’s soul/R&B – but unlike Tarantino’s homage to the
history of Blaxploitation and strong women in cinema, the only thing Womack’s
song speaks to is the sweltering image of the social pressure cooker that
it narrates: Harlem.
As the credits roll and viewers are introduced to the physical landscape of Harlem, Womack wails a call-and-response about the people who scratch and survive to make up the social environment, like a desperate mirror image to the theme from TV’s Good Times (1974-1979). Like the film itself, Womack’s lyrics and Shear’s visuals come together to suggest to viewers that 1970’s Harlem is something more than just a place or the people that live in it – it’s a unique mixture of the physical and the human that combines and recombines in complex ways. To Across 110th Street, Harlem is social chemistry.
More after the ever-lovin' jump!
As the credits roll and viewers are introduced to the physical landscape of Harlem, Womack wails a call-and-response about the people who scratch and survive to make up the social environment, like a desperate mirror image to the theme from TV’s Good Times (1974-1979). Like the film itself, Womack’s lyrics and Shear’s visuals come together to suggest to viewers that 1970’s Harlem is something more than just a place or the people that live in it – it’s a unique mixture of the physical and the human that combines and recombines in complex ways. To Across 110th Street, Harlem is social chemistry.
More after the ever-lovin' jump!
