German Blu-Ray

Not about the disc. A history of Sun Ra and the film.

Space Is the Place: The Singular Journey of Sun Ra https://www.sfcv.org/article/space-is-the-place-the-singular-journey-of-sun-ra
Biograpy: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Place-Lives-Times-Sun/dp/0306808552

Jim Newman didn’t set out to make the most radical Afro-Futurist blaxploitation film of the 1970s. But then, everything about Space Is the Place, which started as a documentary project focusing on Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra, was unlikely and paradoxical.

For decades, the 1974 film was more legend than fact. It never officially screened in theaters and was passed around like samizdat on VHS tape, in an abridged 64-minute version edited at the insistence of Sun Ra, the Zen-master-like pianist, keyboardist, composer, poet, visionary, and bandleader who blithely erased distinctions between avant-garde provocation and historically informed repertory.

A strict disciplinarian who strongly encouraged his bandmembers to shun women, booze, and drugs, Ra insisted that nudity and explicit violence be removed from the film, making him an odd choice indeed as the central figure for a blaxploitation flick (though not for the apocalyptic, sci-fi, black liberation tale that can also be found in the multifarious film). In 2003, Plexifilm released an expanded 82-minute version of the original Space Is the Place edit, and there have been several subsequent reissues, including an excellent Blu Ray production.