Personal Problems (Blu-ray)

Bill Gunn—actor, playwright, novelist, and director of the art-horror classic Ganja and Hess (1973)—teamed with novelist/essayist Ishmael Reed and poet/publisher Steve Cannon to produce what Reed has called a “meta-soap opera.” This extraordinary, rough-edged ensemble piece explores black working-class lives with candor and emotional intensity and features a who’s who of important artists including Walter Cotton, Vertamae Grosvenor, Jim Wright, and Sam Waymon, with music by Carman Moore, and cinematography by Robert Polidori. Rarely shown and, when screened, seen in a mutilated cut hampered by the poor quality of available materials, it appears for the first time in a full-length, two-part version restored from the original camera tapes. Seen in its proper form, Personal Problems is nothing short of a revelation.