Black Film - A Short History
The black film industry sprang to life on Chicago’s south
side in 1912 with the completion of The Railroad Porter, which Fatty Arbuckle
ripped off as The Pullman Porter six years later. Hollywood was not making films about, for, or
starring blacks, so the black community created its own film industry, to share
the magic of this new entertainment medium and speak to their issues. In
1915, Birth of a Nation, which glorified the racist Ku Klux Klan, inspired
black businessmen to create film production entities to fight the stereotypes.
Oscar Micheaux
The Railroad Porter, produced by entrepreneur and vaudeville
promoter Oscar Micheaux was a hit. Within Our Gates, the earliest
surviving feature directed by a black man as a rebuttal to Birth of a Nation
was his second. Micheaux went on to make
forty more so-called “Race” films
through 1948 including Birthright, Body and Soul, Within Our Gates and Harlem
After Midnight. In an era of outright
discrimination, he said ‘One of the greatest tasks of my life has been to teach
that the colored man can be anything’.
Frederick Douglass
Booker T. Washington associate Emmet J. Scott raised money
to make another Birth of a Nation rebuttal, the three hour The Birth of a
Race. The Frederick Douglass Film Company and the Lincoln Motion Picture
Company were established in New Jersey to “picture the Negro as he is in his
every day, a human being with human inclination, and one of talent and
intellect”.
But Chicago’s South Side was the heart of the industry, where
the majority of product was created for underserved black audiences. Conventional movie theatres were segregated so
they created their own chains. The films
produced there found appreciative audiences in northern US cities and Canada.
Al Jolson
Al Jolson starred in The Jazz Singer, notable not just
as the first motion picture with sound and song, but also for Jolson’s
blackface performance of Mammy. It made him a star and remains a strong and objectionable
image. Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby used
blackface, a practice that thankfully died out in the fifties.
Blackface dates back to the minstrel shows of the
1850s and subsequent vaudeville shows, known as the ‘fool’s mask’, evoking the
stereotypical Darky or Coon. Whites
weren't the only performers to use blackface. Bert Williams used it as the sole black member
of the Ziegfeld Follies and in later films.
The Depression caused a ten-year slump in race movies but Hollywood
was finally beginning to tell blacks’ stories. Many depictions were
demeaning, like the jive talkin’, shuffling Stepin Fetchit, the ubiquitous
houseboy, elevator operator and shoeshine boy. Fetchit
was known to feign loss of memory or mumbled lines that he found offensive, or
pretended to be too dumb to understand the script. 
Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson, one of the most admired entertainers of that
era, had a deep, booming voice and powerful presence in The Emperor Jones. He won fans in the US and around the
world. He was rarely challenged by the
obstacles his colleagues faced.
The 1939 Oscar sensation Gone with the Wind was universally
despised by black audiences for its stereotypical characters. Ironically, Hattie McDaniel became the first
black to receive an Academy Award, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her
portrayal of house servant Mammy. She was known as the “colored Sophie
Tucker” and the “female Bert Williams” for her sense of humour and often came
under fire for her stereotypical characters. “Why should I complain about making seven
thousand dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making seven
dollars a week actually being one!”
Lena Horne
By the late forties, black actors and filmmakers were
finding regular work in Hollywood. Black
musicals became especially popular and launched the careers of Cab Calloway,
Lena Horne Duke Ellington and Count Basie, among others. All-black films like Cabin in the Sky, Stormy
Weather and later Carmen Jones were huge hits with mixed audiences.
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier, such a success in Blackboard Jungle, Raisin in the Sun, the
Defiant Ones, and Lilies of the Fields radiated an appealing, elegant and
intellectual persona that smashed stereotypes. He set the tone for more enlightened exchange
as the civil rights movement grew. The
film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in which he is a doctor engaged to an upper
crust white woman, the daughter of intellectuals, was a landmark in which his
full powers of persuasion came to the fore.
Pam Grier as Foxy Brown
But that tone was turned on its head in the 60s’ when a
rebellious new generation emerged, bringing angry, radical politics into the
mix. Sex, drugs, and criminal subject matter eventually resulted in the
blaxploitation genre of Shaft, Foxy Brown, Coffy, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss’
Song. These were stylized caper film
with iconoclastic themes and actors. Blaxploitation
filmmaker Gordon Parks said “I chose
my camera as a weapon against all the things I dislike about America”.
TV star Eddie Murphy led an influx of black superstars into
public consciousness in the eighties and became one of the highest paid and
most successful actors of the time. The Beverly Hills Cop franchise led
to a diverse variety of roles.
Robert Townshend galvanized the independent black filmmaking
world in 1986 with the release of Hollywood Shuffle, a comic, ironic look at
the treatment of blacks in Hollywood. He
famously funded the film on credit cards, which brought him and his work
initial media attention. 
Spike Lee
That same year, Spike Lee hit hard with She’s Gotta Have It,
launching not only his career, with idiosyncratic films Do the Right Thing,
School Daze and Do the Right Thing, but the careers of important stars of the
future. Rap and gangster movies of the
late eighties and nineties made music/acting crossover stars of Ice T and Ice
Cube and led to careers in production.
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington, a fiercely talented actor and Oscar winner
whose movie star good looks and interesting choices make him one the today’s
most respected stars. His performance in
Flight earned him another Oscar nomination this year.
Quvenzhané Wallis
Quvenzhané Wallis made history this year as the
youngest star ever to be nominated for an Oscar. She is up for the Best Actress award for
Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson is one of the most distinctive and hardworking actors in Hollywood. Jackson made an indelible impression on Django Unchained this year and
won a Black Reel Best Supporting Actor nomination, and Jamie Foxx was named
Best Actor for the film .
Jamie Foxx
Among recent black Academy Awards winners are Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman and Halle
Berry.
One hundred and one years later, the South Side of Chicago has undergone a cultural
renaissance, thanks to Oprah Winfrey’s rebuilding efforts. Studios dot the area and Winfrey has infused a
creative energy that enlivens the television landscape. Oscar Micheaux would be thrilled to see it.
iPhone App: 100 Years of Black Cinema
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