Oscar Micheaux

  • Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (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.

  • Body and Soul (1925)

    Body and Soul (1925)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) My naïve understanding of black American cinema prior to digging deeper in film history was that blaxploitation had started it all, but it took until the late 1980s until black filmmakers came on the scene with their own stories. That is profoundly mistaken, and I’ve been trying to atone for this misconception by seeking out the films of Oscar Micheaux who, in the silent era, would produce films as vital and reflective of the African-American condition as anything produced later on by Spike Lee and his cohort. Within Our Gates is a terrific example of silent cinema that still has the power to shock today, and I was also impressed with The Symbol of the Unconquered as a black western with the KKK as antagonist. Body and Soul is very much in the same vein, although it turns its attention inward, focusing on a mother trying to keep her daughter from making bad decisions—even if the temptation here is a preacher who is secretly an abusive thieving murdering alcoholic. Narratively, Body and Soul is a bit of a mess—the ending is a blatant “it was all a dream” cop-out, and the film can’t quite figure out if it’s the story of the daughter, the mother, the evil preacher or his beatific twin brother. On a technical level, much of the film is as rough as any other 1920s film—static camera, rough inserts, overlong title cards and so on. But there are occasional flashes of brilliance as well: there’s a sequence in a cabin in which the antagonist comes to rape the heroine, and it’s filmed with a great deal of style, the image narrowly focusing on his shoes as he enters the cabin as a way to build suspense, and then (“Half an hour later,” the title card bluntly says) leaving the cabin with little guilt. It’s a sequence that remains with viewers long after the silliness of the plot harms the overall film. Still, Body and Soul remains a fascinating viewing experience: it features rural black characters living dignified lives decades before, say, Sounder. It’s almost entirely absent of white characters, and it shows Micheaux with greater command of his craft as a filmmaker than his first features. Perhaps more regrettably, it’s one of the few silent films from Micheaux to have survived until now—might as well appreciate what we now have.