African American cinema

rdf:langString African American cinema

rdf:langString Poster for the independent film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, 1971

rdf:langString Director Cheryl Dunye in 2016

rdf:langString Director Ivan Dixon in 1967

rdf:langString Director Jordan Peele in 2019

rdf:langString Director Tyler Perry in 2016

rdf:langString Film director Gordon Parks in 1963

rdf:langString Matinee idol Denzel Washington in 1990

rdf:langString Oscar Micheaux is considered the first major African-American feature filmmaker. He made his first film in 1919 and his last in 1948.

rdf:langString Booker T. Washington's uplift movement led to Uplift Cinema, another way of describing Race Films. Photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston, c. 1895.

rdf:langString A newspaper ad for The Homesteader a lost black-and-white silent race film by filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.

rdf:langString Maria P. Williams is considered the first Black woman film producer for the 5-reel silent drama based on her own screenplay for Flames of Wrath in 1923.

rdf:langString Lester Walton started writing film criticism in 1908 for the national mainstream Black newspaper New York Age. His reviews and insights remain foundational for subsequent Black film literature.

rdf:langString Movie star Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun, 1959

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rdf:langString Directors in the Civil Rights Era

rdf:langString Three Film Pioneers

rdf:langString A Raisin in the Sun 1959 2.JPG

rdf:langString Cheryl Dunye, Skype, Teddy Award 2016 .jpg

rdf:langString Denzel Washington .jpg

rdf:langString Gordon Parks.jpg

rdf:langString Ivan Dixon 1967.JPG

rdf:langString Jordan Peele .jpg

rdf:langString Lester Aglar Walton.png

rdf:langString Oscar Micheaux.jpg

rdf:langString Sweet sweetback poster.jpg

rdf:langString The Homesteader 1919 newspaperad.jpg

rdf:langString Tyler Perry Interview 2016.jpg

rdf:langString Booker T. Washington by Francis Benjamin Johnston, c. 1895.jpg

rdf:langString Nypl.digitalcollections.510d47df-b814-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.001.wCROPPED.tif

rdf:langString African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline. Segregation, discrimination, issues of representation, derogatory stereotypes and tired tropes have dogged Black American cinema from the start of a century-plus history that roughly coincided with the century-plus history of American cinema. From the very earliest days of moving pictures, major studios used Black actors to appeal to Black audiences while also often relegating them to bit parts, casting women as maids or nannies, and men as natives or servants or either gender as a "magical negro," an update on the "noble savage." Black filmmakers, producers, critics and others have resisted narrow archetypes and offensive representation in many ways. As early as 1909, Lester A. Walton the arts critic for New York Age was making sophisticated arguments against the objectification of Black bodies onscreen, pointing out that "anti-Negro propaganda strikes at the very roots of the fundamental principles of democracy." Noting the educational impact film could have, he also argued that it could be used to "emancipate the white American from his peculiar ideas," which were "hurtful to both races." The "race films" of 1915 to the mid-1950s followed a similar spirit of "racial uplift" and educational "counter-programing" with an eye to combating the racism of the Jim Crow south. That sensibility shifted markedly in the 1960s and 70s. Although Blaxploitation films continued to include stereotypical characters, they were also praised for portraying Black people as the heroes and subjects of their own stories. By the 1980s, auteurs like Spike Lee and John Singleton created nuanced depictions of Black lives, which led the way for later filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Ava DuVernay to use a range of genres (horror, history, documentary, fantasy) to explore Black lives from multiple perspectives. Ryan Coogler's 2018 blockbuster superhero film Black Panther has also been widely praised for creating a fully realized Afrocentric urban utopia of Black people that include a foundation myth, a legendary hero and takes "utter delight in its African-ness."