A Century of Black Cinema

I love film, history, and documentaries in general, so this was just right up my alley. The first half was most interesting to me since it dealt with the more obscure black figures in cinema during the first half of the 20th Century, the time in which I am most interested, whether it be black or white cinema. The second half deals with the blossoming of the blaxploitation 70's through to the end of the 90's. Here you see several rare clips of "behind the scenes" action from the making of these movies. If anything, they may have tried to cram too much into the approximate 100 minutes allotted. No big complaints from me. I would have preferred a more serious and in-depth look at Oscar Micheaux and other black film pioneers and a higher quality of documentary, such as you might find on American Masters, but this was obviously made rather cheaply. It mainly gets a 7 rating from me because of all the great clips. Entertaining but not very cerebral.

This is an American Archive Film Footage Documentary of Black 'Actors' past & present - dead or alive - the ones we know, love & remember and the less obscure.

A lot is crammed in this movie - almost like first basic steps of 'The Quick-Step' dance moves of 'slow, slow, quick quick, slow' - ie: feature, feature, quickly mention & move on, quickly mention & move on & back to feature again. However, unlike most dance moves which relies on precise timing, the time spent on each segment or each feature or mentionable factor is variable.

It gets 10/10 from me because anything less than a 10/10 heaps more negativity on a community of Hollywood 'A' Listers that never made it to Hollywood.

It gets 10/10 from me because anything less than 10/10 is not doing this documentary justice or the Black 'Actors' who are featured or mentioned, especially where a poor quality archived film footage has been researched, obtained & used.

The documentary is about the Black people that made it to being filmed in front of the camera & those that worked behind the scenes of the camera.

Some of the most talented male/female Black Actors were held to ransom & couldn't get work because being Black, Beautiful & Talented was just too much for Hollywood who preferred to use 'blacked-up' white actors. Hollywood also 'Blacklisted' many 'actors', because of their politics, involvement with, had contacts & associations with Black Activism. For me the most famous 3 of these were: Lena Horne, Paul Robeson & Josephine Baker.

Other Actors managed to keep themselves in continuous employment/work by playing major roles in Black movies, and the minor or demeaning roles Hollywood credited to them.

A Century Of Black Cinema has it all. You won't be disappointed.

*Not mentioned in the movie is Wikipedia's polite description profile of Josephine Baker as a French Resistant Agent.

"Baker 'aided' the French Resistance during World War II, and also worked with the British Secret Intelligence Service and the US Secret Service, the extent of which was not publicised until 2020 when French documents were declassified. After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal".

The long & short is: Josephine Baker was born in the USA & was a US citizen that Hollywood rejected. She made her fame & fortune in Europe & was used or worked as a 'Spy' for the French & the English during WW2.

The use of the term 'aiding' must have been written in peace time, because in war, there's no 'aiding' & abetting when you're a government 'Spy'.*

Century of Black Cinema (2003)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Ted Newsom directs this well-made documentary that gives us a history of black cinema. This documentary was a lot better than I was expecting it to be but the director goes into some great details about various movie stars from the past. The film starts off with early silent cinema and how most black actors were just white people in blackface. We then discuss the likes of D.W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION and then we get into the likes of Oscar Micheaux.

From here the documentary covers a wide range of films and actors including the popular ones like Sidney Poitier but also some of the lesser known or forgotten artists like Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland,and Willie Best. We also cover even smaller artists who have sadly been forgotten over the years. Films like GONE WITH THE WIND are discussed as well as some of the rock and roll films of the 1950s that at least allowed America to see the real artists like Chuck Berry.

While the running time keeps this from being even better, there's no question that Newsom has done a terrific job with not only the interviews but also the film clips shown. The story and how he tells it are extremely good and I thought this would really be beneficial to people that aren't overly familiar with some of these names. Yes, there's an error in regards to an actress in THE BIRTH OF A NATION but that's just a minor thing.

"Century of Black Cinema" is a very good song for folks who know very little about the subject. However, due to the brevity of the film, it's also a bit superficial and I would really love to see a much longer or multi-part documentary about black actors and actresses in film.

The film pretty much gives a chronological overview of the subject-- from the days around "Birth of a Nation" where many of the 'black' actors were actually white folks in black-face to the first inroads of black actors into Hollywood films to the all-black cinema of the 30s and 40s to more mainstream roles in the 1950s and beyond. Many of these early stars and important films were discussed, though because the film is so short, some films were sadly omitted (such as "Imitation of Life" in 1934 and "Intruder in the Dust") and a few actors omitted as well. This is NOT to say it's a bad film. Despite having a distinctly made straight to video look, the film was interesting, well written and worth seeing.