[Reader-list] 100 Years of African American Cinema

[Paul D. Miller]

reasonably interesting article
Paul

Celebrating 100 Years of Black Cinema

     From the earliest days of film, black pioneers have
     imagined a better world for African Americans-a
     world that was often far ahead of reality.

By Nsenga Burton | 
Posted: February 3, 2010 at 12:27 PM
http://www.theroot.com/views/celebrating-100-years-black-cinema-0

As we all know, February marks Black History Month. But
this year, February also marks something else: The 100th
anniversary of the birth of black cinema. Black cinema
was making black history before Carter G. Woodson
founded Negro History Week in 1926. And this week, black
cinema is making history once again with the nomination
of Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire for
Best Picture. It's the first time in the history of the
Academy Awards that a film directed by a black director
is nominated for the top award. Director Lee Daniels is
following in the footsteps of those who came before him-
namely, William D. Foster and Oscar Micheaux.

Oscar Micheaux is often lauded as the father of black
filmmakers. But William D. Foster began producing films
nearly a decade earlier than Micheaux's first effort. In
1910, Foster, a sports writer for the Chicago Defender,
formed the Foster Photoplay Company, the first
independent African-American film company. (Foster
wasn't a complete stranger to show business; he had also
worked as a press agent for vaudeville stars Bert
Williams and George Walker.) In 1912, Foster, produced
and directed The Railroad Porter. The film paid homage
to the Keystone comic chases, while attempting to
address the pervasive derogatory stereotypes of blacks
in film.

This was three years before D.W. Griffith's The Birth of
a Nation (1915), a plantation fantasy credited with
establishing negative stereotypes of blacks in film that
still exists today. Consider the Reconstruction scene,
where barefoot black legislators eat fried chicken,
swill whiskey, lust after white women and pass a law
that all legislators must wear shoes. Insert a
cantankerous mammy, tragic mulatto, murderous buck,
black rapists and a lynching, and you've got what is
shamefully considered to be one of the greatest films of
all time.

In response to The Birth of a Nation, brothers George
Perry Johnson and Noble Johnson (a Universal Pictures
contract actor), founded the Lincoln Motion Picture
Company in 1916, producing middle-class melodramas like
The Realization of a Negro's Ambition (1916) and the
Trooper of Troop K (1917) and their most well-known
film, The Birth of a Race (1918). The Johnson brothers'
movies featured black soldiers, black families and black
heroes, concepts foreign to most mainstream films at
that time.


Oscar Micheaux soon followed suit with The Homesteader
(1919), becoming one of the most prolific filmmakers of
his time. He directed over 40 films, most notably Within
Our Gates (1920) and Body and Soul (1925), which
featured film star Paul Robeson, and God's Step Children
(1938). Micheaux's films explored the issues of the day:
passing, lynching, religion and criminal behavior. They
were independently produced until he filed bankruptcy in
1928, reorganizing with white investors as the Micheaux
Film Company. Some argue that this changed the tone and
direction of his films.

Micheaux's films attracted controversy: Some black film
critics criticized his work for its portrayal of blacks,
which sometimes perpetuated the same stereotypes found
in mainstream films. You didn't find these stereotypes
with the work of Eloise Gist, a black woman filmmaker,
who with her husband, James, made religious films.
Eloise Gist, a D.C. native, drove around with a camera,
shooting footage that used "real" people as actors. Her
morality films, Hellbound Train and Verdict: Not Guilty,
were released in 1930 and were strongly endorsed by the
NAACP.

Early black filmmakers aimed to show the full humanity
of African Americans with story lines and themes that
countered prevailing ideologies about blackness. Many of
the films are hard to find and have "poor" production
values because they were literally making something out
of nothing.

Early black cinema is an important part of American
culture because it visually brought our stories to life.
Without the black independent film movement, there would
be very few black films today. Where would the black
film canon be without the Los Angeles School of Black
Filmmakers of the 1970s? Haile Gerima, Charles Burnett,
Larry Clark, Pamela Jones, Jamaa Fanaka, Julie Dash,
Billy Woodberry, Alile Sharon Larkin all came out of
UCLA. Their films tied black stories to black political
struggles with an intellectual and cultural core.

Some say Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's
Baadasssss Song (1971) was revolutionary; others found
it to be pornographic Van Peebles made this cult classic
for $500,000; it grossed $10 million. Without Sweet
Sweetback, there would have been no space for Gordon
Parks Jr., Ossie Davis and others to direct films during
the blaxploitation era. Although controversial, the
blaxploitation era gave black actors, filmmakers and
musicians an opportunity to make movies-at least in the
beginning. During that era, one of the most profound
independent films of all time emerged-Ivan Dixon and Sam
Greenlee's The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), which
gave voice and visuals to the black power ideology that
was evolving at that time. It was an unapologetic look
at rebellion and literally using the masters' tools to
dismantle the masters' house.

It wasn't so long ago that so many people of all races
didn't believe that they would see an African-American
president in their lifetime. But what some couldn't
imagine in reality, black filmmakers created in fantasy,
reimagining an America where a black man could be
president. In The Man (1972), James Earl Jones stars as
Douglass Dilman, a black man who becomes president of
the United States after the untimely deaths of the
president and speaker of the House. (The vice president
was too sick to take over.) Jones brilliantly conveys
the struggle over power and identity in this cult
classic that shows the complexity of race and class in
the Oval Office.

Historically, black cinema has been inextricably linked
to social issues in our community. The controversy over
Tyler Perry's and Daniels' films has a lot to do with
class issues, something that Oscar Micheaux also
experienced. While black filmmakers have broken many
barriers, there is still much work to be done. For
example, Cheryl Boone Isaacs is currently the only
African American among the 43 governors of Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. While African-American
film directors like Antoine Fuqua and F. Gary Gray are
directing films that encompass many different genres
including action and suspense, black female directors
like Kasi Lemmons (Eve's Bayou) and Euzhan Palcy (A Dry
White Season) have not fared as well.

Black cinema has always imagined what we could never
dream of in reality. Now that reality is catching up
with black film, it will be fascinating to see where it
goes, particularly on the independent front. Let's think
about how the concept of black cinema is being redefined
when a film like Avatar features Zoe Saldana, Laz Alonso
and CCH Pounder in starring roles.

Black cinema is evolving and will continue to evolve. It
did not start with Tyler Perry, nor will it end with
him. There would be no Denzel Washington without Sidney
Poitier and no Sidney Poitier without Paul Robeson.
There would be no Halle Berry without Dorothy Dandridge,
no Dorothy Dandridge without Lena Horne and Lena Horne
without Fredi Washington. There would be no Hughes
Brothers without the Johnson Brothers, no Lee Daniels
without Spike Lee, no Gina Prince-Bythewood without
Darnell Martin. There would be no Tyler Perry Company
without New Millenium Studios, no New Millenium Studios
without Third World Cinema.

As in many other industries, African Americans have made
their mark in film narratively, stylistically,
historically, thematically, economically and
aesthetically. What some call poor production values,
particularly as it relates to early black films, I call
a survival aesthetic-doing the best that we can with
what we have. Now that we have 100 years under our
belts, we will do better. No matter how much black film
changes, the ways in which we interrogate society
through our films will not.

As we embark on a new decade in American society where
many believe race will become less of an issue, we often
forget how long black film has been around and how it
has given voice-and image-to our issues.

Black cinema is black history-and our future.

Nsenga K. Burton Ph.D. serves as cultural critic for
Creative Loafing. An assistant professor at Goucher
College in Baltimore, she is a media scholar and
filmmaker who recently finished Four Acts, a documentary
on the 2007 public servants strike in South Africa.
Follow her on Twitter.