Emory film professor explores legacy and film career of the late Sidney Poitier

The legendary actor Sidney Poitier died on Jan. 6th at 94, and tributes to his remarkable accomplishments in film continue to pour out. Among his life’s many landmarks, Poitier was the first Black performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for “Lilies of the Field” in 1963. He once said he felt “as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made.” Professor Nsenga Burton teaches film and media studies at Emory University and joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes to discuss Poitier’s film career highlights and extraordinary legacy.

Selected insights on the films of Sidney Poitier:

“Paris Blues” (1961) – “I like it because it really does show Sidney Poitier in a kind of complicated character. He received lots of criticism over his career regarding his very stoic and respectable representations, and so I think in this movie, he does that, but he also really challenges this whole idea of the types of characters that he plays because the character that he plays in this particular film is definitely self-serving, is definitely part of a subculture, I guess you could say — because he’s a jazz musician in Paris … It’s just a very interesting look at what it means to be Black, globally Black.”