Notes on the History of Black Cinema

The first all-black casted film, The Homesteader, was made by novelist Oscar Micheaux in 1919. It dealt with the race tensions and inequalities of the period, a theme that would continue to be pervasive in black cinema. Of the 500 or so ‘race movies’ – films made for black people by black people up until about 1950, only around 100 have survived, due in part to their existence outside the protection of Hollywood.

Perhaps the most notable black pioneer in cinema is Sidney Poitier. In 1963, Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for his part in Lilies of the Field (though James Baskett was awarded an honorary Oscar for his role in Song of the South and Hattie McDaniel won a Best Supporting Actress Award for Gone With the Wind). He was regarded as a critically and commercially successful actor, starring in films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night and They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! Poitier was savvy enough to choose roles that not only paid off financially, but roles that also challenged black stereotypes of the time. He also had a successful career behind the camera with a clutch of directorial efforts. For his contribution to cinema, Poitier was awarded an Academy Honorary Award in 2001 and more recently received a Medal of Freedom from President Obama.

An important chapter of black cinema is the blaxploitation genre of the 1970s. Led by films such as the original Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the blaxploitation films usually starred black casts who, through brain and brawn, outwit The Man. Whilst some found the films empowering – Spike Lee said of Sweet Sweetback, “...[it] gave us all the answers we needed. This was an example of how to make a film, a real movie, distribute it yourself, and most important, get paid”- others, such as the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Urban League, criticised the genre’s crass stereotyping (such as pimps or drug-dealing characters) and the movement waned by the end of the decade.

The legacy of blaxploitation lives on, most notably in the work of Quentin Tarantino. Kill Bill, Death Proof and especially his masterpiece Jackie Brown (which starred stalwart of the original movement, Pam Grier); all owe a creative debt to the blaxploitation genre. Shaft was remade in 2000 and the movement influenced films as diverse as American Gangster to Austin Powers. For better or worse, blaxploitation also influenced the iconic style of the ‘gangster’ image adopted by artists such as Snoop Dogg, Ice T and 50 Cent.

Perhaps the most important black director of recent years is Spike Lee. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of Art, Lee has helmed almost fifty major films (as well as numerous advertisement campaigns, most famously for Nike). He has also directed videos for Prince and the late Michael Jackson. Lee’s signature film, Do the Right Thing, was nominated for two Academy Awards, though not Best Picture, to the chagrin of the director and many others. Deemed controversial upon it’s released in 1989, several jumpy white reviewers incorrectly predicted that black audiences would be incited to riot after seeing the film. Of course, no violence took place and the film has gone on to be rightly heralded as a modern classic.

Lee is nothing if not outspoken, both on-screen and off. While his films deal with issues of race, media and society, Lee himself has been a strident critic of the NRA and Charlton Heston, the actions of the US government post-Katrina and racist right-wingers. An avid sports fan, Lee is preparing a documentary on Michael Jordan as well as a sequel to his 2006 thriller, Inside Man.

I noted whilst researching this article that of the top twenty highest grossing film stars of recent years (in a survey published by Esquire magazine) only two were black – Will Smith and Eddie Murphy (furthermore, only five were female). No Academy Awards have been won by a person of African origin in the last two years. In spite of the boundaries broken by Micheaux, Poitier and Lee, Hollywood, at least, is far from an equal opportunities workplace. Thankfully, independent cinema showcases much more black talent, which is why events such as the Black Filmmaker’s International Film Festival are so important.