BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION : A Look Behind the Scenes of Black Film : BLACKFACE: Reflections on African Americans and the Movies <i> by Nelson George</i> ; HarperCollins Publishers; $22, 224 pages

In the past decade, African American-inspired or produced films have gone from sporadic oddities to regular features of our cinematic landscape.

Nelson George’s behind-the-scenes look at the people and films that prompted this transformation is what makes his “Blackface: Reflections on African Americans and the Movies” so fascinating. In this personal and anecdotal book, “more a memoir than a critique,” George uses his life and experiences to open a window into the current role of blacks in the making of many recent black movies.

A few years ago, the former Village Voice columnist, Billboard black music editor, renowned cultural critic and steadfast film fan entered the filmmaking business himself, co-writing two movies: the romantic comedy “Strictly Business” and the rap music parody “CB4.”

The book begins with George recounting his early love affair with movies and the black images he found there. Intertwined with his movie memories, George traces, in broad strokes, the development of black film from the regal and refined positive images of Sidney Poitier to the blaxploitation flicks of the 1970s and the ascent of Richard Pryor, “the only African American film star whose career was spawned during the blaxploitation era and who continued on as a leading man after that tide had ebbed.”

George was especially affected by Poitier’s screen images: “Sidney’s heroic bearing, that face full of character and intelligence made him the man I wanted to be.” When George saw Poitier at a Hollywood event, he realized, “that regal quality that leaped off the screen at me when I was a kid was no act. The man moved like a king . . . I froze and just looked up at him.”

During the late ‘70s and 1980s, George’s music industry connections brought him into contact with the emerging group of black filmmakers, igniting his own film career and generating personal relationships with many of those shaping contemporary black film, including the Hudlin brothers, Spike Lee, Robert Townsend, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Leslie Harris, and black music moguls Russell Simmons and Andre Harrell.

George recalls his budding friendship with Brooklyn neighbor Lee in the pre-”She’s Gotta Have It” days. While working on that film, “Spike lived . . . in a cluttered two-room hovel dominated by an editing board, a bed, a stereo and an early Michael Jordan poster,” George recalls. “In piles along the floor and in shelves were tapes, records, papers, photographs, you name it. . . . There was ambition manifest in that room that held the seeming chaos together.”

Later, George watches an early version of “She’s Gotta Have It” (a film he supported with an investment) and concludes: “While I was watching the film in his crowded little space, I realized (I lived) around the corner from one of the key artists of my generation.”

The book’s biggest weakness is that George fails to address an important question suggested by his own observations and reflections. He understands that viewers, as evidenced by his own youthful idolization of Sidney Poitier, look to movies for models of how to live and who to be.

He realized long ago that “cultural products (are) not disconnected but (are) part of an on-going dialogue that reflects and/or molds their time,” and that different cultural images may be in “aesthetic conflict.” Indeed, George’s own movie, “CB4,” mocks what he terms the “ghettocentricity” of rap music’s performers and audience.

What, then, of the images produced by the current generation of black filmmakers? How can their work be characterized? What characters, themes and settings will they or, more important, should they explore? Other than predicting “further innovation” and discussing the financial pressures and marketing difficulties black films face, George offers little analysis of contemporary black cinema.

Part of the excitement surrounding the surge in black film and the prominence of black filmmakers springs from the vaguely felt hope that they will refashion the big screen representation of black life (and maybe of the American experience more generally).

Although Lee has demonstrated remarkable versatility, many recent black-oriented films already show signs of the mindless trend following that created the opportunity for fresh perspectives in the first place. “New Jack City,” “Boyz in the Hood,” “Menace II Society” and “Juice” (among many others) represent the most prominent thematic thread of recent black films, the manchild-in-the-ghetto-fighting-to-survive story.

Perhaps the new black filmmakers will refashion movie making by crafting culturally meaningful films that are commercially viable. Or maybe they will simply color Hollywood’s stock characters black, with a tint of racial stereotyping. Either way, black film, at long last, does seem here to stay.