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Interview by Jeremy Geltzer
Can you explain the genesis of your Midnight Ramble project?
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The Midnight Ramble is the culmination of a life's work. I'd been researching black cinema since 1970 and I did a festival here in New York. During the course of doing the search for that festival, I got word that there were a packet of films that the American Film Institute had just purchased. So we went down and looked at them and I just blown away by the stuff I saw. It was Scar Of Shame, The Betsy Smith St. Louis Blues, Paul Robeson's first film Body And Soul. Just seeing those images, those early images was tremendously exciting. |
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Could you, Ms. Bowser explain "Race Movies" to our viewers who might be unfamiliar with the genre?
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Right, well, "Race Movies" is a term I think of pride that was used for these early movies that were made especially for black audiences and more often by blacks. It was a thing of pride to be called a "Race Man" or a "Race Woman." You know the boys would have been "Race Men" because they were doing so much for African Americans and by the same token I think that many people thought of the movies as another way of not only recapturing our own image but of documenting aspects of the culture. |
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For Oscar Micheaux, the great director of Race movies of the silent and early sound period, it seems that the message was as important as the story.
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Micheaux saw the movies as little replicas of life and in his films he depicted what he thought was real. He was also very critical of certain things that were going on in the community. He was critical of gambling and drinking. He was trying to establish through the movies a kind of role model for blacks to follow. He even used himself as a as a role model as a homesteader and as a novelist as a film maker, promoting himself that way. I think that his movies had a very specific purpose at the time. When violence was shown it was to raise the conscienceness of people. It was not simply violence for violence sake.
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The images of violence are pretty devastating, the lynching sequence in Within Our Gates, for example. |
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Right, but they're not there as enticement or as entertainment. I mean these images directly addressed what was going on in the South, in particular of the lynchings that were taking place. It's true he exploited certain aspects of what was going on in the community because he used this medium not only to entertain but to educate.
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Not often is a figure uncovered in film that can really rewrite history. Oscar Micheaux was relatively unknown just a few years ago and he's been re-discovered. How does this happen? |
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I don't think he was ever really totally forgotten. I mean his films kind of disappeared but they were out there somewhere because otherwise you know we wouldn't have been able to find so many of them. Once his films were no longer circulating, the people who remembered him didn't all remember him in the same way. Stories are passed from one generation to another and got embellished. In Hollywood, the films were easily dismissed and forgotten because if you don't see them they don't exist.
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I'd like to ask you another question about Micheaux just because he is such a fascinating figure. He wrote, produced and directed his films...Within Our Gates and Symbol Of The Unconquered were recently discovered in Europe in Spanish and French archives...how did they get there? Did European's watch these films? How far a field were Micheaux films seen? |
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Well you have to remember that Micheaux not only wrote, produced, directed, he also distributed his films. And he was very interested in developing larger and larger audiences for his films, so he did indeed go to Europe at one point. Within Our Gates and Symbol Of The Unconquered have surfaced in European archives, but there are those films that he talks about in his correspondence that have not surfaced. I mean we would love to know what happened to The Brut which was shown somewhere in Europe under another title.
I've always been curious to know who that audience was [in Europe] and why they were interested in these specific titles. Symbol Of The Unconquered and Within Our Gates might have been of European interest because these films center around the issue of lynching, the Klan and race relations in the South. I would suspect that there was a genuine interest in what was going on in race relations in this country and abroad and the subject matter of these films might very well have been of particular interest to audiences that saw those films.
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The conversion to sound dealt a harsh blow to Race films but Micheaux made it through the conversion period. How did African American film makers deal with the switch to sound? |
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Well, the conversion did have an impact on early black film makers and the theaters. Micheaux had access to a string of independent theaters throughout the South, he was able to connect with audiences. Now, not all the little theaters switched over to sound equipment as rapidly as in the theater chains. The audience no longer wanted to see silent pictures, you know everybody wanted to see all-singing, all-dancing and talking films. Micheaux by sheer persistence was able to survive that period. Not only the transition to sound, but the Depression made it difficult. He was able to support making his next film by virtue of the books he sold and money he brought in based on exhibition. We think of the early 1920s as the peak period for the silent film and it was a peak period for Micheaux’s film making. He made more than half his total output in that period.
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I think one of the reasons Micheaux is such an endearing figure to us today is because he really embodies the American Dream. I mean, he's really risen up against the odds with a vision and passion. |
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Right, that's quite true.
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Who are some film makers or performers of today that continue his legacy? |
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Spike Lee is a classic example. I mean he has achieved success on a level that Oscar Micheaux probably never dreamed of.
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Would you comment on another great African-American director, Spencer Williams?
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Spencer Williams is an interesting character who has not been given his due. You want to talk about the level of experience and expertise Spencer Williams was able to acquire working in the industry and learning from the source so to speak. By the time he was able to make his own films there was a great deal more professionalism. I’m not talking about acting style. I’m talking about the way he structured his stories and the camerawork and whatnot. I think of two early films in particular that seem to have had an enormous following, when they were resurrected there was a continuing of that following. Go Down Death and Blood of Jesus, two sort of religious movies, movies with religious themes. I recall the experience of showing those two films at the High Museum in Atlanta a number of years ago when Black elderly people came by bus loads to see those films again.
He was able to capture something there in terms of a segment of African American audiences. It's a pity that his films have not yet been restored. I think if someone put together a festival of Spencer Williams' work, there would be an enormous interest. We'd look at Spencer Williams quite differently than the man who played Amos in Amos and Andy.
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I've been seeing a number of articles recently on Paul Robeson, reassessing his career for his hundredth birthday. |
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We are beginning to rediscover Paul Robeson in Body and Soul, ironically enough, his first film. I mean it is one of the few opportunities we have to see him because this is a silent film, to see him as an actor not as a singer or athlete, or scholar, and whatnot. When you look at Body and Soul, the film does give you a sense of the enormity, the great presence that he had.
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Ms. Bowser thank you for taking the time to talk with us.
We are celebrating the Separate Cinema with 29 films during the month of July. Oscar Micheaux is featured with 4 recently discovered and restored films, Paul Robeson in 3 rare films, and Spencer Williams in 5 films. |
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