“Beyonce’s ‘Black Is King’ Reimagines ‘The Lion King’ in New Trailer (Video)

“Beyonce’s ‘Black Is King’ Reimagines ‘The Lion King’ in New Trailer (Video) - TheWrap” plus 1 more

Beyonce’s ‘Black Is King’ Reimagines ‘The Lion King’ in New Trailer (Video) - TheWrap

Posted: 28 Jun 2020 12:00 AM PDT

Beyonce has turned the songs she wrote for the "Lion King" companion album "The Gift" into a new visual album, "Black Is King," that will debut on Disney+ on July 31.

In a joint release announcing the film, Disney and Parkwood Entertainment say that "Black Is King" will reimagine the story of "The Lion King" to provide more lessons for "today's young kings and queens in search of their own crowns" and to honor "the voyages of Black families, throughout time."

"'Black Is King' is an affirmation of a grand purpose, with lush visuals that celebrate Black resilience and culture. The film highlights the beauty of tradition and Black excellence," Disney and Parkwood said.

Also Read: Beyonce Calls Out Bias in Music Industry During Graduation Speech (Video)

Released last year alongside Disney's remake of the classic animated film, which starred Beyonce as Nala, "The Lion King: The Gift" features guest appearances from Black artists like Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, Jay-Z, and Blue Ivy Carter. Those guest artists will also appear in "Black Is King," which has been in production for a year.

This is Beyonce's third visual album following her self-titled album in 2013 and her critically acclaimed 2016 album "Lemonade," which premiered on HBO and became the best-selling album of that year.

Watch the trailer for "Black Is King" in the clip above.

Making Beyonce's 'Lemonade': 12 Videos From the Filmmakers Who Got It So Gorgeous (Videos)

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Everyone seems to agree: "Lemonade" is a true cinematic beauty. Pause the hour-long film at any time and you have a perfectly shot freeze-frame of Beyonce being intimidating, tender, or full of life. Credit goes to Beyonce for her focused creative vision, but also to these directors who brought their own styles to the table and helped make "Lemonade" such a visual feast.
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Kahlil Joseph is one of the fastest rising stars in the short film world. His style is highly influenced by Terrence Malick, whom he worked under as an editor. He has also collaborated with Kendrick Lamar.
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In his music video for Flying Lotus' "Until The Quiet Comes," Joseph begins and ends the film with his central figure floating underwater. There is a similar scene in "Lemonade" during the "Pray You Catch Me" segment where Beyonce floats through an underwater bedroom.
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Melina Matsoukas is a music video director whose filmography contains a gold mine of A-List music stars: Ludacris, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, and Ciara have all worked with her.
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Matsoukas won a Grammy in 2013 for her video for Rihanna's "We Found Love," which depicted a rocky, drug-infested relationship that quickly turns violent after a reckless honeymoon period.
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"Lemonade" is the 13th collaboration between Matsoukas and Beyonce. They also worked together earlier this year on "Formation," a song and video that have both been praised as anthemic.
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Dikayl Rimmasch is a director who loves making films in highly contrasted black and white, such as this short film he made featuring Beyonce and Jay-Z as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde.
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Rimmasch loves playing with shadows and figures placed against spotlights, and his style can be seen during the black-and-white segments of "Lemonade," such as the scene with Serena's cameo appearance.
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On the other end of the spectrum is Jonas Akerlund, who loves using saturated colors and dramatic, exciting shots. The scene where Beyonce takes a baseball bat to a car "Big Lebowski"-style can probably be attributed to him.
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If you want to see Akerlund at his most bizarre, check out his short film, "The Hidden," an art piece about the chaos that lies within the human mind. Echoes fill the soundscape, water and strait jacket sleeves flail at the camera, and the pacing draws you into a false sense of calm before jarring you with a scream.
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Then there's Mark Romanek, one of the greatest music video directors of all time. Romanek was honored in 1997 at the MTV VMAs and has won three Grammys for his work with Johnny Cash and Janet and Michael Jackson.
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His video with Cash was a cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," and its meditation on Cash's mortality, shortly before his death, has earned it a reputation as one of the greatest videos of all time.
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Romanek was responsible for filming the "Sandcastles" segment from "Lemonade," using soft light and intimate close-ups to show Beyonce and Jay-Z at their most vulnerable.

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More work by the artists responsible for "Lemonade"

Everyone seems to agree: "Lemonade" is a true cinematic beauty. Pause the hour-long film at any time and you have a perfectly shot freeze-frame of Beyonce being intimidating, tender, or full of life. Credit goes to Beyonce for her focused creative vision, but also to these directors who brought their own styles to the table and helped make "Lemonade" such a visual feast.

Beyoncé’s Search for Home Continues on Black Is King - The Atlantic

Posted: 15 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT

The final installment in this unofficial trilogy, Black Is King is the most joyful and epic journey of the three. A follow-up to the 2019 soundtrack that Beyoncé curated for The Lion King, the film has been acclaimed for its vivid portrait of Black diasporic beauty—and is best understood by first diving deep into the specifics of the visual story it tells. The film opens with a bird's-eye view of a basket floating down a river. Beyoncé first appears alone at the water's edge dressed in flowing white, but in the next scene, she's cradling a baby. She joins other Black mothers in a ritual blessing of newborns; with this, the women symbolically hand the infants a legacy that will guide them into the world. By the end of the sequence, the baby has grown into a young boy, a human stand-in for the lion cub Simba. As his guide, Beyoncé readies him for a journey into his own history that will prepare him to become king.

Viewers are reminded repeatedly in song, prose, and images that Blackness is inherently regal, even divine. As the film's narrator and central figure, Beyoncé is opulently adorned, and so is everyone else onscreen. In a monologue about beauty, Beyoncé declares, "Black is king." In another scene, a woman proclaims, "I can't say I believe in God and call myself a child of God, and then not see myself as a god." The production of Black Is King primarily employed African musicians, dancers, choreographers, and designers, and it is their work that helps shape Beyoncé's vision of a universal Black home. In a sequence set to the Afrobeat pop song "Water," co-written by the HBCU graduate Nana Afriyie, footage of everyday African people is intercut with shots of the cast. The message is that, across the continent's plains, cities, and streams, the majesty of Blackness is constant.

The film contains two crisscrossing stories that underscore the sacredness of Black beauty—one narrative is linear, the other curved like a boomerang. The linear story is marked by dialogue from The Lion King, and mostly follows the same order as the songs from the movie's 2019 soundtrack, The Gift. Across the segments that serve as mini music videos for this arc, the young Simba meets his destiny. He learns the lessons of his father, Mufasa (to the song "Find Your Way Back"); encounters his dangerous uncle ("Don't Jealous Me" and "Scar"); lives an indulgent life in exile ("Mood 4 Eva"); returns to fight for his throne ("My Power"); and finally reclaims his crown ("Keys to the Kingdom").

In the second narrative, which is more fantastical and meditative, Beyoncé is a guide on a metaphorical journey toward Black pride. The story's lessons are made plain by the lyrics of the accompanying songs, which argue, for example, that Black people should heed ancestral wisdom ("Ja Ara é"), remember that they are royalty ("Already"), and honor their mothers ("Brown Skin Girl"). During this arc, viewers learn the origin of the basket on the river. With an apparent climate disaster bringing the world to an end, Beyoncé is revealed as the mother of the lost baby as she sets him afloat on the water. Later, "Simba" is reunited with his mother and father when he floats up to the ancestral plane. The circle of life is nearly complete, and it is this return that drives Simba to reclaim his power.