I have done parts and episodes in my previous forays into the history of the silver screen, but I see the topic of Black American cinema as a study of two halves that make a superb whole. The issue has never really gone away, but at least it is less brutal than in the early 20 th century. In other words, while the first half of Black American cinema is defined by pioneers and visionaries, it is also rife with racist tropes, constant difficulties with white financiers, as well as internal struggles regarding story and identity.
There was barely any room for Black Americans in the film business. If any of them wanted to make it to the big screen, they would have to become filmmakers themselves. Few were hired to play racially accurate roles, as most such positions were otherwise rare and usually went to white actors in blackface. It was in , barely, that Sidney Poitier made history as the first black man to take the same honour home. Charles Musser and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart did a phenomenal job of curating this selection, which was released in Many were also made by Black American filmmakers.
Ultimately, the true value of these productions was not to use their black subjects as props or objects of ridicule. Their premise brought their lives front and centre, giving voice to a community that had been kept out of the limelight for far too long, already.
He built his name on genres like the melodrama, the crime drama, and romance, producing 44 films to his name. Its crosscutting and temporal treatment speak against D. The Black American director depicts the white lynch mob as opposed to the romanticized gallant Klan, choosing to show a truth that black people knew, and white people refused to acknowledge. More than once, he was harshly criticized by black elites regarding representation, which is a hot button topic even today.
Black American stereotyping was already bad enough, they said, thus seeing no need to further engage in such deliberate debasing. But Micheaux counterpunched with a simple argument: realism was the key to the progress of the race. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not. Nothing could be a greater blow to our own progress.
