Related Research Articles
Body and Soul is a 1925 race film produced, written, directed, and distributed by Oscar Micheaux and starring Paul Robeson in his motion picture debut. In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Siegmund Lubin was an American motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia.
Tol'able David is a 1921 American silent film based on the 1917 Joseph Hergesheimer short story of the same name. It was adapted to the screen by Edmund Goulding and directed by Henry King for Inspiration Pictures. A rustic tale of violence set in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, it was filmed in Blue Grass, Virginia, with some locals featured in minor roles.
The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain. Because race films were produced outside the Hollywood studio system, they were largely forgotten by mainstream film historians until they resurfaced in the 1980s on the BET cable network. In their day, race films were very popular among African-American theatergoers. Their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African-Americans.
"Nigger in the woodpile" or "nigger in the fence" is a figure of speech originating in the United States meaning "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong".
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was an American film production company founded in 1916 by Noble Johnson and George Perry Johnson. Noble Johnson was president of the company, and the secretary was actor Clarence A. Brooks. Dr. James T. Smith was treasurer, and Dudley A. Brooks was the assistant secretary. The company is known as the first producer of race movies. Established in Omaha, Nebraska, the company relocated to Los Angeles the following year. It remained in operation until 1923, closing shortly after announcing a final project, The Heart of a Negro. The point of the creation of Lincoln's was to eliminate the stereotypical roles of "slapstick comedy" in Hollywood at the time for Black actors and actresses. "best advertised and most widely known Race Corporation in the world" is the famous slogan for the company.
Matrimony's Speed Limit is a 1913 silent short film produced and directed by pioneering female film maker Alice Guy-Blaché. It was produced by Solax Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the beginning of the 20th century. It is one of only about 150 films surviving out of the more than one thousand produced and/or directed by Guy-Blaché.
William D. Foster, sometimes referred to as Bill Foster, was a pioneering African-American film producer who was an influential figure in the Black film industry in the early 20th century, along with others such as Oscar Micheaux. He was the first African American to found a film production company, establishing the Foster Photoplay Company in Chicago in 1910. Foster had a vision for the African-American community to portray themselves as they wanted to be seen, not as someone else depicted them. He was influenced by the black theater community and wanted to break the racial stereotyping of blacks in film. He was an actor and writer under the stage name Juli Jones, as well as an agent for numerous vaudeville stars. His film The Railroad Porter, released in 1912, is credited as being the world's first film with an entirely black cast and director. The film is also credited with being the first black newsreel, featuring images of a YMCA parade. Foster's company produced four films that were silent shorts.
The L.A. Rebellion film movement, sometimes referred to as the "Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers", or the UCLA Rebellion, refers to the new generation of young African and African-American filmmakers who studied at the UCLA Film School in the late-1960s to the late-1980s and have created a black cinema that provides an alternative to classical Hollywood cinema.
The presence of African Americans in major motion picture roles has stirred controversy and been limited dating back decades due to lingering racism following slavery and segregation. "Through most of the 20th century, images of African-Americans in advertising were mainly limited to servants like the pancake-mammy Aunt Jemima and Rastus, the chef on the Cream of Wheat box." While African American representation in the film industry has improved over the years, it has not been a linear process; "Race in American cinema has rarely been a matter of simple step-by-step progress. It has more often proceeded in fits and starts, with backlashes coming on the heels of breakthroughs, and periods of intense argument followed by uncomfortable silence."
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a 1918 American silent drama film directed by J. Searle Dawley, produced by Famous Players–Lasky Corporation and distributed by Paramount Pictures under the Famous Players–Lasky name. The film is based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and George Aiken's eponymous play.
Lime Kiln Field Day is a 1913 American black-and-white silent film produced by the Biograph Company and Klaw and Erlanger. Unnamed, unassembled, and abandoned by its producers during post-production, the original footage was saved when Biograph donated its vaults to the Museum of Modern Art in 1938. It is considered to be the oldest surviving feature film with an all-Black cast.
Spook Ranch is a 1925 American silent Western film directed by Edward Laemmle and starring Hoot Gibson. It was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film featured white actor Ed Cowles in blackface playing Hoot Gibson's black sidekick, George Washington Black.
Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is an American cinema studies scholar and television host for Turner Classic Movies. A professor at the University of Chicago, she also served as inaugural artistic director, and then president for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from 2021 to 2024. She has served as director of the nonprofit arts organization, Black Cinema House, and as a member of the National Film Preservation Board.
The Common Law is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Albert Capellani and starring Clara Kimball Young, Conway Tearle, and Paul Capellani. It was made at Fort Lee and distributed by the newly formed Selznick Pictures. Shortly afterwards the company switched production to Hollywood.
The Sky Raider is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by T. Hayes Hunter and starring Charles Nungesser, Jacqueline Logan and Gladys Walton. With the interest in the aviators of World War I, producer Gilbert E. Gable and Arcadia Productions, were able to showcase the talents of Nungesser, a genuine hero, who had 43 aerial victories, as the third-highest French ace. The Sky Raider was based on the short story, "The Great Air Mail Robbery" by Jack Lait.
The Spider's Web is a 1926 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux which stars Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.
African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline.
Dark and Cloudy is a 1919 film with Lillian Biron and George Ovey. It is part of the Library of Congress Black Films paper print collection, although it appears to be a comedy short featuring white actors. The film has been described as using blackface as a comic pretext. It was directed and written by Craig Hutchinson.
Passing Through is a 1977 American film directed by Larry Clark and co-written by Clark and Ted Lange.
References
- ↑ Bean, Shawn C. The First Hollywood: Florida and the Golden Age of Silent Filmmaking. Gainesville FL: University of Florida Press, 2008, p. 106.
- ↑ Coleman, Robin R. Means (1 March 2013). Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-136-94294-5.
- ↑ Niver, Kemp R. (1982). Bebe Bergsten (ed.). Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress. Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress. p. 222. ISBN 0844404632.
- ↑ Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma (28 March 2005). Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity . University of California Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-520-93640-9.
