Black And White Bioscope

Black and White Bioscope recovers a neglected chapter in the histories of world cinema and Africa. It tells the story of movie production in Africa that long predated francophone African films and Nollywood that are the focus of most histories of this industry. At the same time as Hollywood was starting, a film industry in Southern Africa was surging ahead in integrating production, distribution, and exhibition. African Film Productions Limited made silent movies using technical and acting talent from Britain, the United States, and Australia, as well as from Africa. These included not only the original "long trek movie" and the prototype for the movies Zulu and Zulu Dawn but also the first King Solomon's Mines and the original Blue Lagoon, featuring African actors such as Goba, Tom Zulu, and Msoga Mwana, who starred as the black revolutionary in Prester John. In this lavishly illustrated book, fifty movies are reconstructed with graphic photographs and plot synopses--plus quotations from reviews--so that readers can rediscover this long-lost treasure trove of silent cinema.

From the glossy monochrome of the classic Hollywood romance, to the gritty greyscale of the gangster picture, to film noir’s moody interplay of light and shadow, black-and-white cinematography has been used to create a remarkably wide array of tones. Yet today, with black-and-white film stock nearly impossible to find, these cinematographic techniques are virtually extinct, and filmgoers’ appreciation of them is similarly waning. Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s. Acclaimed film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon introduces us to the masters of this art, discussing the signature styles and technical innovations of award-winning cinematographers like James Wong Howe, Gregg Toland, Freddie Francis, and Sven Nykvist. Giving us a unique glimpse behind the scenes, Dixon also reveals the creative teams—from lighting technicians to matte painters—whose work profoundly shaped the look of black-and-white cinema. More than just a study of film history, this book is a rallying cry, meant to inspire a love for the artistry of black-and-white film, so that we might work to preserve this important part of our cinematic heritage. Lavishly illustrated with more than forty on-the-set stills, Black and White Cinema provides a vivid and illuminating look at a creatively vital era.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE • ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

Why are there so few Black filmmakers who control their own work? Why are there scarcely any Black women behind the camera? What happens to Black filmmakers when they move from independent production to the mainstream? What does it mean for whites to control Black images and their distribution globally? And, was it always so? Could it be different? In this vivid portrait of their historic and present-day contributions, Jesse Rhines explores the roles African American men and women have played in the motion picture business from 1915 to the present. He illuminates his discussion by carefully linking the history of early Black filmmaking to the current success of African American filmmakers and examines how African Americans have been affected by changes that have taken place in the industry as a whole. He focuses on the crucial role of distribution companies, the difficulty of raising money for production, the compromises that directors and writers must make to get funding, and the effect of negative, sensationalistic images on the Black community. Many well-known directors, including Spike Lee, Reginald Hudlin, and Grace Blake are interviewed in the book, allowing Rhines to give readers an inside look at how deal making does--or does not--work. Rhines surveys significant eras in film history and their impact on African Americans, from the silent era and the impact of The Birth of a Nation, through the emergence of the Black-owned Lincoln Motion Picture Company, and the later introduction of sound, to the postwar era, the antitrust suit against Paramount Pictures, the introduction of television, and Blaxploitation movies that won audiences back. He brings the story up to date with present-day blockbusters and the success of Spike Lee, who began as an independent and became a force in the industry, and others who hope to follow in Lee's footsteps. Rhines, who has worked behind the camera himself, reflects on independent filmmaking, the risks of both failure and success, and his hope for positive change in the African African community if more African American filmmakers can come to the forefront in the business.

Since its inception, U.S. American cinema has grappled with the articulation of racial boundaries. This applies, in the first instance, to featuring mixed-race characters crossing the color line. In a broader sense, however, this also concerns viewing conditions and knowledge configurations. The fact that American film engages itself so extensively with the unbalanced relation between black and white is neither coincidental nor trivial to state — it has much more to do with disputing boundaries that pertain to the medium itself. Lisa Gotto examines this constellation along the early history of American film, the cinematic modernism of the late 1950s, and the post-classical cinema of the turn of the millennium.

Since its publication in 1977 to acclaim as a pioneering work, this has remained the first and only book to detail all aspects of a unique era in the history of motion pictures--the only time in the U.S. when films featuring an all-Black cast, produced and directed by Blacks, were shown primarily to Black audiences, in theatres many of which were owned and managed by Blacks. Sampson traces the history of the Black film industry from its beginnings around 1910 to its demise in 1950, chronicling the activities of pioneer Black filmmakers and performers who have been virtually ignored by film historians. Significantly more information on Oscar Micheaux and other Black producers of the period and descriptions of many more Black films are included in the second edition. A new chapter discusses the first black images in American film as portrayed by Whites in blackface. The list of film titles from both the sound and the silent periods, including members of the cast, has been greatly expanded. With an extensive list of Black musical "soundies;" full index; and many new and rare photographs.

This anthology adds to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies by examining settler colonial narratives in the under analyzed medium of film. Cinematic Settlers discusses different cinematic genres, national traditions, and specific movies in order to expose related threads, shared circulations of knowledge, and paralleled representations. Organized into thematic groupings—conquest, settlers, natives, and space—the contributors explore the question of how film compares to written genres and other visual media in representing and effecting settler colonialism on a global scale. Striving for inclusiveness, the volume covers different eras and settler colonial situations in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hawaii, the American West, Canada, Latin America, Russia, France, Algeria, German Africa, South Africa, and even the next frontier: outer space. By showing how films offer layered, contested, and dynamic settler colonial narratives that advance and challenge settler hegemonic readings, the essays enable students to better analyze and understand the complex history of diversity and colonialism in film. This book is important reading for undergraduate classes on the history of empire, colonialism, and film.