Fade to Black
(Page 2 of 2)
November/December 2000
Nicole Duclos Utne Reader
A superb introduction to this overlooked era in film history is
the 1994 documentary Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the
Story of Race Movies. Like other 'race movies'--early films
made with African American casts for African American
audiences--Micheaux's work presented a picture of black life vastly
different from what viewers got from white directors like D.W.
Griffith. Griffith's Civil War saga, The Birth of a Nation,
was controversial from the moment of its release in 1915, harshly
criticized by blacks and whites for its racist stereotypes. Certain
scholars believe that Micheaux's two classic works were a direct
attempt to challenge Griffith's take on black America as inaccurate
and cruel.
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Aware of the cinematic attraction that lies beneath the surface
of taboo racial issues, Micheaux wasn't afraid to highlight the
tensions he saw both between and within the races. And in an era
when Hollywood generally portrayed African Americans as crude and
uneducated, Micheaux's work was one of the few places where the
blacks of his time could see themselves represented as confident,
intelligent, and socially mobile--a pioneering vision that
mainstream filmmaking would not acknowledge for decades.
Micheaux's two silent classics along with
some of his later sound films, are available from Facets Multimedia
(800/331-6197).
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