Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking (2021)
(On Cable TV, July 2022) I have been fascinated by Oscar Micheaux’s work ever since seeing Within Our Gates—it’s the film that unlocked the early history of black cinema for me, and the honesty in which he tackled his themes of racism and discrimination finds few echoes until decades later. In other words, if any silent-era movie director deserves a biographical documentary, it’s him. Now here comes Italian filmmaker Francesco Zippel to fill the gap with Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking—not only through excerpts of his films or contemporary interviews with luminaries (a lineup including Jacqueline Stewart, Melvin van Peebles, John Singleton, Chuck D and Morgan Freeman), but rare and much-appreciated footage of Micheaux at work on his movie sets. His formative years are described rather well and the overview of his surviving films feels exhaustive, but this documentary goes beyond hagiography in looking at what happened next in Micheaux’s career—his inability to successfully transition to the sound era, the forces that prevented his budding film empire from progressing further, and the limitations of his admirable attitude that black Americans could improve their situation through hard work and education. (As Stewart recognizes, that viewpoint neglects to address the formidable systemic racism of American society, and that is an argument that goes beyond Micheaux himself.) Micheaux-as-an-old-man seldom gets mentioned in laudatory snapshots of the filmmaker focusing on his early career, but this film would have been incomplete without it. In fact, you can argue that Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking works best not as an introduction to the man, but as a slightly more substantial exploration of his role as seen from today. (If the film does have one irksome characteristic, it’s found in the “superhero” of the title-an over-the-top reference that won’t age as well as Micheaux’s films.) It’s essential viewing for anyone working on a serious overview of black American cinema.