Midnight Ramble (film)

Last updated
Midnight Ramble
Directed by Pearl Bowser
Bestor Cram
Written by Clyde Taylor
Beth Deare
Produced byBestor Cram
Pamela A. Thomas
Starring James Avery
Toni Cade Bambara
St. Claire Bourne Sr.
Pearl Bowser
Dorothy Delfs
CinematographyBestor Cram
Bruce Johnson
Edited by Kathy Russ
Music by Caleb Sampson
Distributed by American Experience
Release date
  • October 26, 1994 (1994-10-26)
Running time
57 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Midnight Ramble is a 1994 documentary about the early history of Black American movies from the period between 1910 and 1950. Known as "race movies", these films, traditionally independent of Hollywood, were made primarily by, for and about the black community. This documentary is a tribute to a film genre that lasted for more than 40 years, produced over 500 movies, and created a foundation for contemporary films from directors such as Spike Lee and Tyler Perry. James Avery narrates this exploration of the early black film industry. There is a mistaken assumption that "race films" began largely in reaction to D. W. Griffith's 1915 The Birth of a Nation . Nothing could be further from the truth. Race movies actually began around 1910 in Chicago in response to the Black Community longing to see themselves reflected on the silver screen via this new medium of film. Wanting to see themselves through their own eyes, on their own terms thus counteracting the Hollywood stereotypes within the American media.

Contents

The film focuses especially on the work of Oscar Micheaux, considered the "Dean of Black American film", a controversial filmmaker who wrote, produced, and directed over 40 features, and tackled difficult social issues in Black America. It includes clips from films by a number of African-American directors of the period, which is very helpful since many of these films are difficult to find or unavailable. [1] There are two versions of the title of the documentary, both referring to the same work. Initially released in 1994 as, Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux & the Story of Race Movies [2] It was re-released as Midnight Ramble: The Story of the Black Film Industry by PBS in 1995 [3] The 1995 version also eliminates the David McCullugh introduction.

Synopsis

The documentary begins with an explanation of the social context for American blacks at the turn of the 20th century. It then looks at milestones in the development of race films. [4] This includes a look at early silent films, most notably the work of William Foster (The Pullman Porter, 1910). [5]

Homesteader, and writer, Oscar Micheaux, the grandson of slaves, shifted his attention to film, releasing his first film, The Homesteader, in 1918, followed in 1920 by Within Our Gates (considered the answer film to Griffith's The Birth of A Nation) and The Symbol of the Unconquered in 1921. With the transition to sound, Micheaux continued to make race films, some of which were controversial even within the Black community.

While the advent of sound decreased the number of race films being made, due to the rise in costs, notable films continued to be released. This included a series of three singing-cowboy movies starring Herb Jeffries as "The Bronze Buckaroo."

Cast list

Influence

Midnight Ramble was chosen as the lead-off for a 1998 Turner Classic Movie Channel series, A Separate Cinema, in which 29 race films were shown, including Micheaux's 1920 Within Our Gates and The Symbol of the Unconquered (1921). In selecting the films to be shown, producers called upon the expertise of its staff, film historians, professors at Yale and Duke universities, and film archivist Pearl Bowser, who also co-directed Midnight Ramble. [6]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Barnes, Paula C. New Voices on the Harlem Renaissance: Essays on Race, Gender, and Literary Discourse, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006, p. 276 - ISBN   0-8386-4073-7.
  2. ↑ Thomas, Pam (prod.), "Black Folks Make Movies". Archived April 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine . Cincinnati OH.
  3. ↑ "The American Experience/PBS", 1995. VHS.
  4. ↑ Thomas, Larry. October 2007. "Movie Reviews: Midnight Ramble" Archived June 1, 2012, at the Wayback Machine . WVXU Radio, Cincinnati.
  5. ↑ "Film Notes for Midnight Rambles", Cincinnati World Cinema. 2007.
  6. ↑ Haynes, Monica. June 30, 1998, "Looking back at black films": Post-Gazette.com Magazine/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved August 14, 2007.

Related Research Articles

<i>Within Our Gates</i> 1920 film by Oscar Micheaux

Within Our Gates is a 1920 American silent film by the director Oscar Micheaux that portrays the contemporary racial situation in the United States during the early twentieth century, the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration of blacks to cities of the North and Midwest, and the emergence of the "New Negro". It was part of a genre called race films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Micheaux</span> Writer and first major African-American film director and producer

Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers, Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race films, and has been described as "the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century". He produced both silent films and sound films.

Ed Guerrero is an American film historian and associate professor of cinema studies and Africana studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His writings explore black cinema, culture, and critical discourse. He has written extensively on black cinema, its movies, politics and culture for anthologies and journals such as Sight & Sound, FilmQuarterly, Cineaste, Journal of Popular Film & Television, and Discourse. Guerrero has served on editorial and professional boards including The Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board.

A midnight ramble was a segregation-era midnight showing of films for an African American audience, often in a cinema where, under Jim Crow laws they would never have been admitted at other times. The films shown were often from among the over 500 films that were made between 1910 and 1950 in the United States with black producers, writers, actors and directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race film</span> Film genre

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.

The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. (BFHFI), was founded in 1974, in Oakland, California. It supported and promoted black filmmaking, and preserved the contributions by African-American artists both before and behind the camera. It also sponsored advance screenings of films by and about people of African descent and hosted the Oscar Micheaux Awards Ceremony, held each February, from 1974 to 1993, in Oakland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lincoln Motion Picture Company</span> Defunct African American film production company

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edna Mae Harris</span> American actress (1910–1997)

Edna Mae Harris, sometimes credited as Edna May Harris was an American actress and singer. Harris, an African–American, was film actress in the late 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in films featuring mostly African–American casts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Chenault</span> American actor

Lawrence Chenault was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actor. He appeared in approximately 24 films between years 1920 and 1934; most of his performances were in films directed by pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. His brother, Jack Chenault, was also a film actor.

<i>Gods Step Children</i> 1938 film by Oscar Micheaux

God's Step Children is a 1938 American drama film directed by Oscar Micheaux and starring Jacqueline Lewis. The film is inspired by a combination of elements shared from two previously released Hollywood productions, Imitation of Life and These Three.

The Notorious Elinor Lee is a 1940 race film directed, written, and co-produced by the African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.

The Symbol of the Unconquered is a 1920 silent "race film" drama produced, written and directed by Oscar Micheaux. It is Micheaux's fourth feature-length film and along with Within Our Gates is among his early surviving works. The Symbol of the Unconquered was made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and released by Micheaux on November 29, 1920. A print of the film is extant at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The film is based on the way perceptions of race shape human relationships.

The Czar of Black Hollywood is a 2014 documentary film by Bayer Mack that chronicles the early life and career of African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951). Mack conceived of and produced the film about Micheaux using Library of Congress archived footage, photos, illustrations and vintage music. The documentary, which is the first devoted exclusively to Oscar Micheaux's life, is narrated by William Bell, features an original score by Nicholas Jones and art direction by Julie Anderson.

A midnight ramble was a segregation-era midnight showing of films for an African American audience.

Pearl Bowser was an American author, collector, television director, film scholar, film director, producer, filmmaker, independent distributor and film archivist. Along with her peers Mel Roman and Charles Hobson, Bowser researched and curated “The Black Film” retrospective at the Jewish Museum in 1970. This prompted a new wave of public interest into “exhibiting, producing, and engaging with African American cinema beyond borders”. Most of her exalted career was spent traveling the globe in order to cultivate audiences for marginalized filmmakers. An example of her efforts, and also her most groundbreaking work, manifested in her research on “early-1900s Black film pioneer Oscar Micheaux”. This research can be seen in her book on the first ten years of the career of Oscar Micheaux, an African-American who directed 40 "race pictures" between 1918 and 1940. She is thus credited for having helped rediscover some of Oscar Micheaux's rare surviving films. She is the founder of African Diaspora Images, a collection of visual and oral histories that documents the history of African-American filmmaking. Part of her journey included teaching young people film in the 1960s and 1970s.

<i>I Am Not Your Negro</i> 2016 documentary by Raoul Peck

I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 German-American documentary film and social critique film essay directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's recollections of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.

The Spider's Web is a 1926 Oscar Micheaux film starring Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African American cinema</span> Films made by, for, or about black Americans

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.

The Midnight Ace is a 1928 American crime film. Abe DeComathiere, Mabel Kelly and Oscar Roy Dugas starred. The film was directed by John H. Wade for Swan Micheaux's Dunbar Film Company. Swan Micheaux was Oscar Micheaux's brother. Swan had worked for Oscar before a failling out over his management of finances. Swan left and formed the Dunbar film company but it only made this film.

Black Shadows on a Silver Screen is a 1975 documentary film about African American cinema. It was distributed by Lucerne Films. Steven York directed and edited the film. Ossie Davis narrates.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.