I have picked three papers out of the bunch that I feel are worthy to be published here on my blog. I'll be presenting the other two in the coming days.
First up--OSCAR MICHEAUX, written by LAWRENCE DENHAM
* * *
Oscar Micheaux:
Auteur Filmmaker
Try to imagine a time when racism was okay to most people,
when there were black and white water fountains and bathrooms, and when even
movie theaters could be segregated. So, can you picture it? Probably not, and
neither can I, honestly. It’s hard to imagine, but this stuff was a reality
less than a hundred years ago in America. Isn’t that pretty crazy? Luckily for
you and me today, we don’t have to deal with that kind of stuff like most
people did back then. But men like Oscar Micheaux had to face those problems
every day, for pretty much his entire life. And even though he faced all of
those issues, he is known today as the first major African American filmmaker
in history. Oscar was a director, screenwriter, and producer all wrapped into
one dude. He’d definitely be a guy that I’d want to meet. So, are you
interested in learning some cool stuff about Oscar Micheaux? I’m going to tell
you about his life and career, his importance to the history of film, three of
his movies, and why he’s considered an auteur. Are you more interested now? I
hope so! So, let’s get started.
I mentioned earlier that Oscar Micheaux lived during a time
when America was extremely racist and many places were segregated. Oscar was
born on January 2, 1884 in Metropolis, Illinois. This was only about twenty
years after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Oscar’s parents
were actually former slaves, which was pretty common at the time. Micheaux
spent most of his time as a kid in Great Bend, Kansas, and then he moved to
Chicago when he was seventeen because he needed a job. He found one there as a
Pullman Porter, which is basically where you help passengers on trains. But by
1906, Oscar got bored with that job and decided to go West and buy some land in
South Dakota. Oscar lived in South Dakota for eight years, and while he was
there he wrote stories about his white neighbors. I guess they must have been
pretty interesting people, because his stories eventually became his first
novel, called, The Conquest: The Story of
a Negro Pioneer. He published that book in 1913, but then there was a
drought so he had to move to Sioux City, Iowa. In 1917 he rewrote his book and
rereleased it as the novel, The
Homesteader. (http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-micheaux-9407584)
Oscar’s new and improved novel was really popular, and an
African American film company asked him if they could make it into a movie. But
Oscar and the film company couldn’t agree to a deal, so Oscar decided to start
his own company, which he called Micheaux Film and Book Company. He sold stock
in the company to raise money to produce the movie on his own. When he finished
the film, it was eight reels long. It
was a huge moment because Oscar Micheaux became the first African American to make
a feature length film. So, The Homesteader
premiered in Chicago in 1919, and it was a big hit. Oscar Micheaux’s second
movie was called Within Our Gates,
and it came out in 1920. That movie was a response to The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith, which was the most popular
film at that time and probably the most racist movie in history. Over the next
thirty years, Oscar continued to make films. He wrote, produced, and directed
over forty-five of them from 1919 to 1948, which was unheard of for African
Americans at the time. In 1931, Oscar made history again when his movie, The Exile was the first full-length
sound film by an African American. His last film, Betrayal in 1948 also made history because it was the first movie
made by a black person to be shown in a white movie theater. A few years later,
Oscar Micheaux died on March 25, 1951 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After he
died, The Directors Guild of America awarded him the Golden Jubilee Special
Directional Award in 1986. In 1987, he received a star on the Walk of Fame. (http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-micheaux-9407584)
If you’ve been following this essay, you now know why Oscar
Micheaux is an important filmmaker in the history of film. As I mentioned he
was the first black filmmaker to make a feature length film in 1919, the first
black filmmaker to make a feature length sound film in 1931, and was the first
black filmmaker to have his movie shown in a white theater in 1948! Oscar was
part of a film movement called race films. These were motion pictures made by
black people with an all black cast, made for black audiences. Most race films
were made from the early 1920s to the 1950s. Race films were meant to challenge
segregation and to address other social problems and stereotypes that black
people faced back then. (http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-micheaux-9407584)
(http://blogs.bgsu.edu/thfm2620group3/a-quick-overview-of-the-race-films-movement/beginnings-of-the-race-film-movement-from-blackface-to-black-cinema/)
Oscar Micheaux is considered an auteur filmmaker. He is an
auteur because all of his movies feature a non-stereotyped black cast, made for
a black audience, and challenged segregation, racism, racial violence, the
education system, and poverty. His movies were meant to erase the popular
racist stereotypes of black people back then. To explain how Oscar Micheaux is
an auteur, I’m going to discuss three of his films, which are Within Our Gates, Murder in Harlem, and Body
and Soul. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Micheaux#Filmography)
Within Our Gates
came out in 1920. It was a response to the very racist The Birth of a Nation,” made by D.W. Griffith. Instead of the black
people being evil and the bad guys as in Griffith’s movie, Oscar’s movie told
his side of the story and portrayed black people as the good guys. His film
took place in the present and was meant to show people the real problems that
African Americans faced during that time, which included poverty, the Jim Crow
laws, lack of education opportunities, and lynching. Oscar used a cast of real
black people in this movie, unlike Griffith who used white people in black face
in his. In all of Micheaux’s films, he wanted to show America that black people
were just as intelligent and respectable as white people. This movie contains
racial violence, too, because towards the end of the movie the main character
Sylvia’s adoptive parents are lynched for a murder to which they have no
connection. They are murdered just for the fact that they are black. The film
contains struggles with poverty and the education system because the main
character’s goal is to raise money to support African American students in the
Deep South. These are examples of signature traits that Oscar Micheaux
incorporated in his movies.
Second—Murder in
Harlem, which came out in 1935. This
movie is basically about a black night watchman who finds a dead young woman in
the basement of the chemical factory where he works. After he reports the dead
woman to the police, he is falsely accused of the murder because he is black.
But it turns out that a white man committed the murder. This movie is important
to Micheaux’s career as an auteur because it contains one of his signature film
traits, which is racism and violence. It is a classic example of a black person
being punished for something that he didn’t do, which was a very common racist
thing at that time. Like Within Our Gates,
this film had black main characters that are very intelligent and are not
racist stereotypes.
My last example is the movie Body and Soul, which came out in 1925. In a nutshell, this movie is
about a shady preacher that steals money from his church congregation and from
a young woman and her mother. The mother doesn’t realize that the preacher is
bad and tries to arrange a marriage between him and her daughter. The daughter
sees that the preacher is a bad guy and ends up exposing him. But before she
gets the chance to expose him, she dies. The mom is sad, but then she realizes
that she had dreamt the whole story all along. The daughter ends up marrying a
good man. Pretty complex plot, right? As in the other two films, this movie
contains traits that prove Oscar Micheaux is an auteur. The mother and daughter
are victims of the poverty that black people faced during Oscar’s time. The
movie features an all black cast, and the main characters, the mother and
daughter, are non-stereotypical black people.
To me, Oscar Micheaux is probably the most important African
American filmmaker in history. Just think about all of those milestones that he
set, such as being the first black person to make a feature length film, or the
first black filmmaker to have their film shown in a white theater. Those
accomplishments can never be repeated! Not to mention that his movies are quite
good and unique, in my opinion. In fact, since this paper is finished, why
don’t you go and watch one of his movies right now? Who knows, it might inspire
you to change society like Oscar Micheaux did.
Works Cited
Within Our
Gates. Prod.
Oscar Micheaux. Dir. Oscar Micheaux. By Oscar Micheaux.
Perf. Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux Film Co., Quality Amusement
Corp., 1920.
Youtube.
Body and
Soul. Dir.
Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux Film Co., Quality Amusement Corp.,
1925. Youtube.
Murder in
Harlem. Dir.
Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux Film Co., Quality Amusement
Corp., 1935. Youtube.
"Oscar
Micheaux." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2013. Web.
07 Dec.
2013.
"Mystery
History Theatre." Mystery History Theatre RSS. N.p., n.d. Web.
07 Dec. 2013.
"Oscar
Micheaux Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television,
n.d. Web. 07 Dec.
2013.
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