Oscar Micheaux and the Beginnings of African-American Cinema
Krzysztof Loska
krzysztof.loska@uj.edu.plJagiellonian University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-798X
Abstract
The author discusses the beginnings of African-American cinema on the basis of the films by Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951), who was one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called race film, and situates his work in broader social, cultural and political contexts. The author juxtaposes Micheaux with other directors who attempted to make films intended for black audiences in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Attention is drawn to a number of aspects shaping the film culture of the African-American community, such as the distribution and promotion system, exhibition practices, or the influence of censorship on the final shape of the work. The author also takes into account stylistic issues and topics taken up in “race films”, e.g. social advancement, emancipation narrative, polemics with racial stereotypes, the “passing” strategy, and the presence of controversial themes (such as lynching or interracial marriages).
Keywords:
Oscar Micheaux, African-American cinema, film culture, early cinema, “race film”References
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Authors
Krzysztof Loskakrzysztof.loska@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-798X
Professor of Humanities in the Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He is the vice-president of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies and member of Editorial Advisory Board of the bi-monthly Ekrany. He has authored 150 papers and dissertations on media, popular culture, film history and Japanese cinema, published in various journals (Kwartalnik Filmowy, Studia Filmoznawcze, Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, Ekrany, Kultura Współczesna, Ethos) and edited volumes. He has published twelve books (in Polish), e.g. Dziedzictwo McLuhana – między nowoczesnością a ponowoczesnością [McLuhan’s Legacy: Between Modernity and Postmodernity] (2001), Poetyka filmu japońskiego [Poetics of Japanese Cinema] (2009), Kenji Mizoguchi i wyobraźnia melodramatyczna [Kenji Mizoguchi and the Melodramatic Imagination] (2012), Nowy film japoński [New Japanese Cinema] (2013), Mistrzowie kina japońskiego [Masters of Japanese Film] (2015) and Postkolonialna Europa. Etnoobrazy współczesnego kina [Postcolonial Europe: Ethnoscapes of Contemporary Cinema] (2016), W cieniu Imperium Wschodzącego Słońca. Japoński projekt kolonialny i kultura filmowa w Azji Wschodniej [In the Shadow of the Empire of the Rising Sun: Japanese Colonial Project and Film Culture in East Asia] (2022).
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