Black American Cinema

by Diawara,Manthia

• ISBN13: 9780415903967
• ISBN10: 0415903963
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-08-18
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This is the first major collection of criticism on Black American cinema. From the pioneering work of Oscar Micheaux and Wallace Thurman to the Hollywood success of Spike Lee, Black American filmmakers have played a remarkable role in the development of the American film, both independent and mainstream. In this volume, the work of early Black filmmakers is given serious attention for the first time. Individual essays consider what a Black film tradition might be, the relation between Black American filmmakers and filmmakers from the diaspora, the nature of Black film aesthetics, the artist's place within the community, and the representation of a Black imaginary.Black American Cinemaalso uncovers the construction of Black sexuality on screen, the role of Black women in independent cinema, and the specific question of Black female spectatorship. A lively and provocative group of essays debate the place and significance of Spike Lee Of crucial importance are the waysin which the essays analyze those Black directors who worked for Hollywood and whose films are simplistically dismissed as sell-outs, to the Hollywood "master narrative," as well as those "crossover" filmmakers whose achievements entail a surreptitious infiltration of the studios.Black American Cinemademonstrates the wealth of the Black contribution to American film and the complex course that contribution has taken. Contributors: Houston Baker, Jr., Toni Cade Bambara, Amiri Baraka, Jacquie Bobo, Richard Dyer, Jane Gaines, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ron Green, Ed Guerrero, bell hooks, Phyllis Klotman, Ntongele Masilela, Clyde Taylor, and Michele Wallace.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Black American Cinema: The New Realism	p. 3
"Twoness" in the Style of Oscar Micheaux	p. 26
Fire and Desire: Race, Melodrama, and Oscar Micheaux	p. 49
Oscar Micheaux: The Story Continues	p. 71
The Black Writer in Hollywood, Circa 1930: The Case of Wallace Thurman	p. 80
Is Car Wash a Black Musical?	p. 93
The Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers	p. 107
Reading the Signs, Empowering the Eye: Daughters of the Dust and the Black Independent Cinema Movement	p. 118
Spike Lee at the Movies	p. 145
Spike Lee and the Commerce of Culture	p. 154
The Ironies of Palace-Subaltern Discourse	p. 177
Looking for Modernism	p. 200
Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance	p. 211
The Harlem Theatre: Black Film Exhibition in Austin, Texas: 1920-1973	p. 221
The Black Image in Protective Custody: Hollywood's Biracial Buddy Films of the Eighties	p. 237
The Construction of Black Sexuality: Towards Normalizing the Black Cinematic Experience	p. 247
Race, Gender, and Psychoanalysis in Forties Film: Lost Boundaries, Home of the Brave, and The Quiet One	p. 257
Reading Through the Text: The Black Woman as Audience	p. 272
The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators	p. 288
Bibliography	p. 303
List of Contributors	p. 311
Index	p. 313
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