The Title, Canopy

Published 3.8.2012

I named the movie Canopy, because the protagonist is, throughout his entire life, trying to figure out what to do with this figurative canopy of protection and nurturing that he has received from a virtual forest of family, friends, and circumstance – a protective canopy especially rare for his African American peers growing up in 1980s DC.  In fact, that is the major thematic question of the movie: “What will he do with all this shade?”

I also like the title Canopy because of the tree image it evokes.  In spite of the painful history they can conjure up in certain contexts, trees seem so majestic and magical to me, and I think they make beautiful pictures.  However, as a foundational metaphor for the movie, I think the title and the concept to which it refers “ground” the narrative in a conversation about how, for example, the magnolia flower relates to its roots, how those in the shade honor those who labored in sun to create that shelter, or how the hope of the slave – the ever increasing percentage of “Talented Tenthers” - understand, imagine, and embrace the disorientation of choosing freedom rather than the security and certainty of bondage, even if embracing bondage guarantees approval of community. 

And by bondage, I simply mean the phenomenon in which young African-Americans especially, who have been prepared to do anything in the world they want, choose an ill-fitting profession, life-style, or world view that may even be oppressive to them all out of an obligation to embody a communal “ideal” of success and “supposed” freedom.  That, I consider bondage.  And while generations of our parents and grandparents had to do this for the opportunities many of us reaped, I wonder if it is actually honoring those sacrifices if we mimic that model of sacrifice when we don’t have to, just so that the we fit in, meet others’ expectations, or quiet our sense of guilt and anxiety for having been unfairly and uncommonly blessed.

As hard as that sounds, I think it is harder, scarier, more intimidating maybe, to choose freedom – to do the thing that feels right even if it is not recognized as an approved point on the trajectory of ascension.  And while it is seems harder to chose freedom – to start that business, to staff that NGO, to travel the world teaching languages, dance, art, to write that novel, I definitely think it is more purposed, ultimately more fulfilling, and closer in line with the spirit of the dream of the slave.  That is what the protagonist is wrestling with in my film, and it is the love, insight, and fearlessness of his soulmate and muse that help him to realize it – for it is a freedom which she has always exuded. 

In this respect, Canopy the movie and the title are about naming and living freedom and love in this 21st century.