Race & Silent Cinema
INTRODUCTION: Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920)
Mark Kermode - virulent racism of the Jim Crow era, period following the civil war - south found ways to form system of apartheid, to separate black and white, with only very limited suffrage or voting rights for black people.
Social Context - Jim Crow in the south, Segregation in the North. Chicago riot of 1919; started because of the killing of a black youth who mistakenly went into an all white area. Preceding history of Within Our Gates - reminder of unjust
The Title of the film is considered to be important with evidencing the fact that Micheaux wanted to directly attack D.W. Griffith's Birth Of A Nation.
Quote from the introduction of Griffith's film: The Romance of Happy Valley
''Harm not the stranger Within your gates, Lest you yourself be hurt.''
Felt that the quote was used in misplace, that the white community constantly hurt their black neighbor.
Micheaux is seeking to tackle and un-do the racist ideology of Birth Of a Nation.
Two films have been made from very different locations.
Micheaux was very savvy about marketing - uses exploitation techniques, clever entrepreneurial director.
Historical Context:
Slavery - American Context; white history of colonialism and imperialism.
The early cinema is a celebration of modernity, but colonialism, imperialism and slavery are also apart of this story. History has always compromised us.
Slavery in the Americas, initially focused on the Caribbean islands - White European and African indentured laborers, enslavement of indigenous people. Used slaves for agriculture purposes, bound to work but earned their freedom over a period of time. Left a labor shortage in the islands.
Slave trade at this point is usually referred to as a triangular trade.
- Africans taken to The Caribbean Islands to work on monocrop production; largely sugarcane, tobacco and then later cotton.
- These were the essential raw materials that made their way back to western Europe; for manufacturing industries for large industrialized factories in the UK.
- These were manufactured into goods, that went back out into colonies
UK was central to the slave trade, route cause of slavery in wider processes of both imperialism and colonization as well as industrilastion.
This is copied and repeated into the southern regions of mainland North America, where the climate is suited to the growing of sugarcane, tobacco and cotton.
In North America, chattel slavery became the norm - where slaves are the property of their owners for life.
Formed dominant and social framework for economy of US throughout the 18th Century.
Younger Slaves can't do much - Dehumanization and objectification of human life
System was non consensual and cohesive and relied on threats of extreme violence dealt by the overseer or local militias which functioned as police force. Symbolic acts of violence such as castration or lynching served well and kept slaves in fear.
Rape, torture and execution were common for black slaves as were taking them away from their families and removal of children from their parents.
illness and malnutrition were also common
Birth Of a Nation becomes another way of showing violence, in Griffith's film the only character we see whipped is a 'loyal black slave' (as labelled by Griffith) who's whipped by three black slaves. The violence is reversed, what is always white on black violence becomes black on black violence. His tactic is to reverse the power relations
Micheaux tries to reverse this.
Civil War:
- South relied on slavery for massive scale agriculture production
- North gave rise to one contiguous geographical area, largely governed by industrialization and capitalism - legislated against slavery
- divided the eastern side of the country
- catalyst that led to war was whether the land in the west would accommodate slavery or not
- Key rule - one could takes one property anywhere when crossing into a free state - even if this was a slave - this basically allowed slaves in the free state
- Republican Northern Leaders such as Abraham Lincoln thought that south allowing the west to do slavery was unacceptable which led to outbreak of a Civil War
- For Southern states to form a separate country - confederate
The war began in 1861, with the north engaged militarily with the south.
Abraham Lincoln produced what was known as the emancipation proclamation in 1863 - proclaimed freedom for slaves within the confederacy - although not those in strategically important borders.
Slaves in the south are freed by union army's or left for the North
Black communities in the North - main audience for race films.
War produced 9,700 causalities - 3% of population and half a million threads.
North are victorious in the war
December 6th 1965 - Slavery is finally outlawed in every state by the ratification of the 13th amendment to the constitution
Period following the war is known as re-construction, period in which it was attempted or designs were made to move a negorian slave owning society to make it in the model captiaslit society.
Discriminations is made more difficult, black males are allowed to vote.
A form of apartheid is installed into most of the southern states.
Black lives still controlled by white land owners - rent
Birth Of a Nation shows both the civil war and reconstruction from a racist white perspective. But Within our gates shows the reality of reconstruction from a black perspective and then points to the long legacy of reconstruction in the late 19th century through to the films presence in 1920. Micheaux is seeking to correct Griffith's account of reconstruction. To correct representation of power relations in play.
August 1619:
12 years after the English settled Jamestown Virginia and one year after the puritans landed Plymouth rock, 157 years before the English colonist even wanted to form their own country. The Jamestown colonists brought 20-30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. The pirates had stolen them from a Portuguese ship that had forcibly stolen them from what is now the country of Angola.
English colonists settling in Jamestown, Virginia - these settlers are buying Angolan slaves. From the first year of people landing into the Americas - slavery is part of the process.
''Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.''
Work done by the millions of African slaves have provided the economic structure that the US has today. Only by black people's struggle and ensue of their rights that the US has any claim to be a progressive nation
Birth of a Nation
D.W. Griffith - Leaves Biograph and relocates to the west coast, as he left he took out a full page ad in The New York Mirror and listed many of his films calling himself a paralleled genius in the new medium. - role of director?
Griffith creates a new company called epoch with producer Harry Aitken - provides framework and distribution for Birth Of A Nation. This took 15 weeks to rehearse and 3 months to edit whereas a film like a Girl and her trust would've taken one week to make from start to finish
The film is significant for it's length - just over 3 hours long. Original budget of 40,000 dollars which expanded to 110,000 dollars (Completely unheard of at the time)
Film based on 1905 novel and play by Reverend Baptist Thomas Dixon Jr
Film premiered on Feb 8th 1915 - LA, under the title ''The Klansman'' but was then retitled at it's premiere in New York 3 months later.
The change was to have the film reflect and shape questions of national identity.
Film gained $80 million dollars, was phenomenally successful.
1998 - in Top 40 American films (not that long ago..)
Innovative film features:
- use of ornate title cards
- original musical score - written for an orchestra (would probably been played live)
- introduction of night photography (magnesium flares)
- extensive location shooting
- elaborate and historically authentic costuming
- use of iris effects
- unusual camera angles
- extensive use of colour tinting - realistic, dramatic psychological effect
- use of ambitious dollying or panning camera shots
- use of close ups to reveal intimate expressions
- use of dissolves to blend or switch one image to another
- use of high angle shots
- panoramic long shots
- battle scenes with hundreds of extras
- extensive cross cutting to create a montage effect
Birth Of A Nation brings theatre to film; initiates film going experience for middle class audiences.
- shipped around the world, on its arrival there would be great spectacle, much more like going to the opera than the theatre. Storefront Nickelodeon became common in those cities. Forefront was more profitable and respected.
KKK had been disbanded in 1877 but the actors dressed as members of the KKK, performed on the street outside where the film is being screened.
The power of the film (as historian Kevin Brownlow writes) led to the events of thanksgiving night in 1915, Atlanta 2,500 former Klansman marched down Peachtree avenue to celebrate the opening of the film.
What started as a PR Stunt had become a reality in Atlanta later that year.
By the mid 1920s the membership of the KKK was 4 million (this was arguably the film's doing). Birth Of a Nation was also popular in Nazi Germany and apartheid Africa.
Is it enough to state, as Roger Ebert has, that Birth of a Nation was ‘…no more or less enlightened than the America which produced it.’ meaning it is a historical object with no bearing on the present. Or should the film be banned, as some others have argued?
A point of clarification.
The film did use black extras but also extensively has white actors in ‘blackface’.
It is telling of the continued racism of the time of the film’s production that any actor that came into contact with a white female actor had to be played by a white actor.
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