Last Angel of History, The
Entry updated 6 June 2025. Tagged: Film.
Made-for-tv film (1996). A UK-German co-production. Black Studio Film Collective, Zweites Deutches Fernsehen and Channel 4 Film Production. Directed by John Akomfrah. Written by Edward George. 45 minutes. Colour.
The Last Angel of History is a hybrid fiction-documentary on the connections between sf, Afrofuturist thought and music that packs a lot of ideas into a short running time, but remains lucid and stimulating throughout. The framing story is of The Data Thief (played by the film's writer, Edward George), a Time Traveller from the future who comes to present-day Earth in search of the Mothership Connection, a mix of Technology, music and history that will give him the clues to the history that formed him. In this he is inspired by myth of blues singer Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent, by Parliament/Funkadelic, by Sun Ra, and by Detroit techno musicians, all of whom forged "Motherships" of their own to explore Black futures.
The documentary portions of the film feature interviews with writers, both from within sf (Octavia E Butler, Samuel R Delany), and outside (Greg Tate and Kodwo Eshun, Ishmael Reed), musicians (Juan Atkins, George Clinton, Carl Craig, Goldie, A Guy Called Gerald, Derrick May, DJ Spooky), astronaut Bernard Harris, and Star Trek actor Nichelle Nichols, among others, all illuminating the way sf ideas inspired and were taken forward by Black musicians and scientists. Tate cogently explores the idea that the outsider status of Black people in America is inherently science-fictional, and leads to a ready identification with the Alien. Akomfrah, George and the film's composer Trevor Mathison were all members of the Black Audio Film Collective, of seminal importance in the development of Black cinema in the UK. [CWa]
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