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Saturday, December 7, 2019

WITHIN OUR GATES (1920)

The first surviving film of Black film pioneer Oscar Micheaux, now at its centennial, holds obvious historical interest . . . non-historical interest is more debatable. Impressively independent in just getting it done, Micheaux’s film technique was equally independent, but less impressive. Such eccentric film grammar, the simple story of a black woman traveling north to raise funds for a poor Southern school is all but impossible to follow. A few scenes add up: a fine, animated church sermon with great reaction shots from the pews; a gossipy sit-down for a pair of racially intolerant white biddies; and the film’s most famous sequence, a double lynching treated as some sort of sick community fair, containing all the shots needed to put it together in your head even if Micheaux can’t. The idea that films were so primitive in 1920 that we need to cut Micheaux some slack ignores similar deficiencies in his later work, as well as the burgeoning film technique in general use at the time. And as for budgetary constraints, a wise man once said, ‘it doesn’t cost a penny more to put the camera in the right place.’ Shown regularly in film classes, it’s a guaranteed turnoff to future investigations by students on films of the period.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A hundred years after Micheaux created a distinctive Black Cinema, we have scores of talented Black directors in film, in spite of remaining obstacles. Yet, towering above them all is another Black independent without a trace of natural filmmaking abilities. (No names, please!) The Oscar Micheaux legacy lives on.

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