Visions of Africans in America
In this portion of the study, students will be instructed to relate their own life experiences to those that are seen in various films. To begin, students will be assigned to view films made by African-American film directors and producers only. By using films that were achieved by members of one's own ethnic group, students will criticize each film performance of actors and actresses. Does the Black filmmaker's message differ from that of other filmmakers? Can we suggest that Black filmmakers in America produce work that is representative of most communities and groups of Blacks in the country? We will find that emphatically the focal point of the message is race. Race is usually placed in the forefront in mass market Black images. The portrayal of Black men, then the Black family, and the Black women sets the stage for the mental image of what it is to be Black as put out by film visual messages.iv Students will recognize and begin to organize thoughts about films that reflect both positive and negative characteristic traits of Blacks as seen in film from their personal observation. Thereafter, students will be required to report to the group what films they believe come under which category and why they have chosen the film to represent said category. Next, students will be required to view Within Our Gates (1920) and in comparison The Green Pastures (1936). Class instruction in this section will focus on the visual meaning of image, stereotyping, mind mapping and the suggestion of the message. Do viewers believe the story, people, community and dialogue to be truth? Why or Why not?
All contemporary Black filmmakers acknowledge the crucial influence that migration has had on African-American cultural production. Whether forced or chosen, it has had a tremendous impact on the ethos of Blacks in America today. Silent "race" films spoke of the ills of city life in order to warn newly arrived Southern immigrants of urban evils, while sound era race films addressed the presence and the promise of the city. As was witnessed in literature during the migration to the North by artist of the Harlem Renaissance, filmmakers began to gauge the assumptions about the country's growing Black urban presence by examining its inclusion, exclusion and distortions in American city spaces by way of the mass marketed film industry. The play between visual and aural signifiers contributes meaning to a Black film, anchoring the narrative in an historical moment.v Without such an exposé of Black life in city and/or town-like spaces these films would have little meaning.
An example of Black imagery created by White filmmakers is the 1936 race film, The Green Pastures, which shows Black heaven with a southern plantation economy of cotton. This represents the rural South in the tradition of heavenly beings. Did Blacks believe this to be real? Did other ethnic groups believe such representations as true or as correlating to what Blacks thought was real? Students will be asked to define the purpose of such a film.
For purpose of this study we will define "race films as black cast movies that may or may not have been made by an African American director for African-American audiences, before 1950." vi In early African-American films, Blacks came to represent servility, slowly this persona changed as Blacks began to make their own films. Through use of a Black aesthetic and the urban drama, African-American filmmakers told a new story. Students must be given necessary historical background information in order to analyze and digest the misnomers of cinema as it plays in front of their eyes, the historical context, both politically and creatively.
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