Reelblack thanks for sharing all these beautiful history on your page i truly appreciate it ♥️❤️♥️❤️ we have to tell our story’s no one else will. Because of you I know now about Oscar & his beautiful work 🙌🏿✊🏿🖤
The movies I've seen so far are by-in-large not bad for the era, budget and other limitations Mr. Micheaux had to work within. My only complaint (albeit minor) is that all the movies I've seen so far always end up at some club. It would nice to see some other aspect of life worked into the plot lines.
Club, as you put it was an intricate part of Harlem Renaissance. oftentimes it was our Ancestors form of escape from Racism to be able to enjoy themselves without judgement from Whites ✌️🏾
Its interesting that all the actors in this film look, sound, and behave like chocolate white actors from that time. Did black actors feel like they needed to copy the mannerisms and style of the white actors at the time? Or were they forced to copy them in order to get these roles? To me, this feels unauthentic even as black bourgeoisie. I wonder why Oscar Micheaux didn't use this opportunity to be original.
Yes. Good observation. The majority of Race Movies at the time were imitations of Hollywood films. The idea was audiences desired to see themselves in those roles- the Black Bogart, Black Singing Cowboy, Sepia Cinderella. It’s interesting, within the range of Micheaux’s novels and literary adaptations you see more originality. Within Our Gates I feel is singular in his work. But generally, we don’t see the shift to define Black life outside of the framework of White identity until the LA Rebellion-the Film movement that began in the late 1960s at UCLA.
reelblack Nothings changed much in the colorism and featurism department even in todays black films or tv sitcoms. Its interesting what you said about the blacks films of that era simply casting their actors in response to black america wanting to see themselves as distinguished and refined like the white elite or upperclass. I wonder if its really the other way around - meaning its the film producers and film industry wanting to socialize or indoctrinate the black film audience to want to become like people other than what they actually are only to further distance themselves from their blackness since its perceived as low class.
i don't think you can use the purview of 2018 to read into it that much. I'm not sure how existential the average movie goer in 1947 was. It was a hustle. While Micheaux as an author spoke a lot about the race issue, And movies like Birthright and House Among The Cedars dealt with Black issues, the majority of Race films were simply product designed to entertain. Yes, Immigrants to the US have traditionally used movies to teach them the new language. Studios like Warner Brothers designed their films to speak to a Urban immigrant audience. But movies, prior to the 1950s and the Birth of TV were disposable entertainment.It wasn't until after WWII that movies began to get sophisticated in that way. Most Race Films were made with very little money and shuffled from town to town on a circuit. Maybe once a decade a major studio would invest big dollars in making an all black film. Micheaux demonstrates a bias that existed prior to film. If anything, he was attempting to tell stories that dignified Black people in a way Hollywood had no interest in.
