Migrating to the movies : cinema and Black urban modernity / Jacqueline Najuma Stewart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma, 1970-

Series:

George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies.

The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans in the motion picture industry.

African Americans in motion pictures.

Motion picture audiences--United States.

Motion picture audiences.

African Americans--Migrations--History--20th century.

African Americans.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The rise of cinema as the predominant American entertainment around the turn of the last century coincided with the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to the urban "land of hope" in the North. This richly illustrated book, discussing many early films and illuminating black urban life in this period, is the first detailed look at the numerous early relationships between African Americans and cinema. It investigates African American migrations onto the screen, into the audience, and behind the camera, showing that African American urban populations and cinema shaped each other in powerful ways. Focusing on Black film culture in Chicago during the silent era, Migrating to the Movies begins with the earliest cinematic representations of African Americans and concludes with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and other early "race films" made for Black audiences, discussing some of the extraordinary ways in which African Americans staked their claim in cinema's development as an art and a cultural institution.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A Nigger in the Woodpile, or Black (In)Visibility in Film History

1. "To Misrepresent a Helpless Race": The Black Image Problem

2. Mixed Colors: Riddles of Blackness in Preclassical Cinema

3. "Negroes Laughing at Themselves"? Black Spectatorship and the Performance of Urban Modernity

4. "Some Thing to See Up Here All the Time": Moviegoing and Black Urban Leisure in Chicago

5. Along the "Stroll": Chicago's Black Belt Movie Theaters

6. Reckless Rovers versus Ambitious Negroes: Migration, Patriotism, and the Politics of Genre in Early African American Filmmaking

7. "We Were Never Immigrants": Oscar Micheaux and the Reconstruction of Black American Identity

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Chicago, 1999.

"The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies"--P. [ii].

Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-325) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612762659

9781597347501

1597347507

9781282762657

1282762656

9780520936409

052093640X

9781417585144

1417585145

OCLC:

58728613