Belly

Friday, August 4 screening will take place in the Bartos Screening Room.

Dir. Hype Williams. 1998, 96 mins. 35mm. With Earl “DMX” Simmons, Nasir “Nas” Jones, Taral Hicks, Method Man, Louie Rankin, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins. Celebrated music video director Williams made his feature debut with this riveting American crime drama. Lifelong friends Tommy Brown (DMX) and Sincere (Nas) are pulled into darkness as each struggles toward a better life far from the streets of Queens where they cut their teeth. Belly is an extended meditation on how drugs, violence, and easy money combine to destroy the African American community, but it’s also far more than that: with its rhapsodic visual style, Williams offers, in the words of scholar Thomas F. Defrantz, a “visual experience that extends possibilities for the medium of filmmaking toward the evocation of Black visual intonation.” 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.