Only one Black person (John Singleton for Boys N the Hood) and three women (Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano and Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation) have been nominated for the Best Director Oscar to date. Both those numbers should have swelled in 1997 with Kasi Lemmons' atmospheric direction of the chilling drama Eve's Bayou. This nail-biting tale of family tension in the Louisiana bayou in the early 1960s was among the finest films of the 1997, but was completely bypassed in the Oscar race amidst the hysteria over Titanic. Regrettably, Lemmons (who won an award for Outstanding Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review for Eve's Bayou) has had only two small budget directorial opportunities since. This is an amazing piece of cinema with fine performances from the ensemble cast. Samuel L. Jackson, Jurnee Smollet and Debbi Morgan all turn in A+ performances.
Review of Eve's Bayou
