Movie Monday Half Past Autumn Part 3 and 4

1. My definition of successful is to have the freedom to choose what I want to do whenever I have breaks from work - I want to travel the world, experience as many cultures as I can, and read as much literature as I have time for.

2. Although I don't think I have been successful yet, for what I have already achieved, I gave up time spent with family and friends, as well as sleep and rest. 

3. Parks needed time to be alone, to emerge and fuse with his talents; this cost him his marriage with Elizabeth. 

4. Genevieve's stepfather was Ambassador V.K. Wellington Koo, one of the founding fathers of the UN. 

5. Parks was advanced $10000 for his first book, after initial offers of $5000 and $7500. 

6. Elijah Muhammad offered Parks a half million dollars, for a book and a film on the black Muslim movement. 

7. Parks refused because he felt that Elijah Muhammad would try to influence his work. 

8. The Learning Tree was the first major film production written and directed by a black man.

9. Shaft was a black superhero, not inhibited by racism; a hero the black community never had before. 

10. Gordon's choice of weapons was photography, music, writing, and film. 

11. Genevieve said that the turmoil in his life and her trying to keep it controlled wore her out as well as set back her own career. 

12. Twelve Years a Slave

13. Gordon Parks' oldest son, director of Superfly, who died in a plane crash while making another film

14. My favorite Gordon Parks photo is Models with Boy-Length Haircuts, taken in NYC in 1949. 

15. In ten years, I will remember the free-spirited way he dealt with life, taking everything in stride and making do as best he could in hard times. He pursued his art with true passion, something I hope to do in my future.