Interview of Toni Cade Bambara and Louis Massiah, conducted by Pearl Bowser, 1992 August 28, Tape 1, Side 1
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Louis Massiah: Bach is someone who I personally and I think most Jazz people hold in awe bec--
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[SILENCE]
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Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah, he's an interesting guy. He's a funny guy.
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Pearl Bowser: [[?]]. Yeah, yeah, he uh,
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Pearl Bowser: Okay it's uh,
Louis Massiah: 28th.
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Pearl Bowser: August 28th. Toni Cade Bambara; Louis Massiah. We are going to be talking about Oscar Micheaux; his career, some aspects of the ascetics of black cinema,
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Pearl Bowser: and deal a little bit with some actual films of Oscar Micheaux.
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Pearl Bowser: Let us start off by talking about the question of ascetics and continuity. Do you think there is any?
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Pearl Bowser: Do you think there is a black ascetic that seems to emerge out of this early black cinema?
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Pearl Bowser: Wondered if there is any continuity, in terms of the then and the now.
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[SILENCE]
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Toni Cade Bambara: My difficulty, of course, is that the body of films of race films that I saw that were done in the 20 and 30s, and I'm seeing them in the 40s, as a child,
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Toni Cade Bambara: my concerns weren't aesthetic, and those that I've seen since I haven't seen enough of them; enough of a body.
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Pearl Bowser: Do, do you think that the films were just like Hollywood, or different, or what was special about them, what was different about them?
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Toni Cade Bambara: They're distinct, they're distinctly different.
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Louis Massiah: Yeah, it's hard for me, as well, to start with aesthetics, 'cause really it's - subject first --
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Toni Cade Bambara: Distinguishes them.
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Louis Massiah: Right. First distinguishes the work. I mean, there was a sense of peril,
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Louis Massiah: that's all from there; there's a sense of danger that's related to uh, race.
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Louis Massiah: And then there were themes, that were, uh, and I'm not talking about comedies, per se.
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Louis Massiah: But I'm talking about some of themes in Micheaux dramas.
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Louis Massiah: Then the themes, um, that in some ways they-- in some of them think that particular to Micheaux,
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Louis Massiah: but because Micheaux is so much of my knowledge, most of like race films, you know black films in that time,
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Louis Massiah: that I sort of assumed that was what also was in the consciousness, in literature, in some of the literature.
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Pearl Bowser: So, that address style, and not aesthetic?
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Louis Massiah: Uh, more subject, you know, more content. The aesthetic, it's really hard,
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Louis Massiah: um, it's hard for me to, to, separate the aesthetic from uh,
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[SILENCE]
Louis Massiah: Euro, European-American films. Some of it. But I mean, but it's the subject,
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Louis Massiah: distinguishes the subject for me.
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Pearl Bowser: But the, the subjects don't necessarily distinguish themselves from Hollywood; it's the approach to the subject.
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Pearl Bowser: I mean, if you take Hollywood film that deals with the tragic mulatto, or just the mulatto figure,
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Pearl Bowser: how does Micheaux deal differently with that?
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Louis Massiah: Well I don't know, I don't feel that, the tragic mulatto, to me, is really a Hollywood construct.
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Pearl Bowser: Okay.
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Louis Massiah: Race, you know, color consciousness is not. I mean, the mulattos are not necessarily tragic in and of themselves;
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Louis Massiah: they have their own baggage, but there isn't that uh, mulatto, does not equal death, or sadness in Micheaux.
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Toni Cade Bambara: It's a character with behavior, and motives.
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Pearl Bowser: It's a, it's a --
Toni Cade Bambara: - character with behavior and motives, in Micheaux. It's not an icon, and it's certainly not tragic, not necessarily.
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Pearl Bowser: Could you be, a little more specific.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think it's true of all the, um, particular characters and particular subjects, although you--
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think we would be hard-pressed to come up with your American films of the same period,
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Toni Cade Bambara: that handle questions of, of course they do, lynching, incest, rape, color cast, interracial banditry,
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Toni Cade Bambara: economic crimes, that are the motives for things like lynching,
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Toni Cade Bambara: I mean, um, it is the selection of subjects that shows the persistence of certain kinds of things.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Also the approach, that distinguishes him from the Warner Brothers, a group of films that I can speak intelligently of
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Toni Cade Bambara: that's going on in the industry in that period, that same period.
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Pearl Bowser: Do you think that uh, if you focus on the subject matter, that makes the difference, and that subject matter is embedded in the african american experience,
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Pearl Bowser: then that, do you think it lends itself to, um, a kind of a uniqueness which perhaps aesthetic is not the right word.
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Pearl Bowser: But it is an extension and expression of the cultural experience, which is unique to the --
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Toni Cade Bambara: Well, one of the-- Yes and no. Here's the no.
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Toni Cade Bambara: The wimpy romances that we get in Micheaux, and we get in all of them, many of the films in the 30s that came out of Philadelphia,
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Toni Cade Bambara: the wimpy romances that have a culture-refined hero, who listens to Bach, or plays the violin, or at least wears a suit and tie, and has very slicked back hair, and always works in the office.
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Toni Cade Bambara: The heroine, who's a damsel in distress, we don't even question her sense of autonomy; generally.
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Toni Cade Bambara: That's generally; that's the type of women we see. And um, maybe she's of a different cast than the fine refined hero who rescues her.
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Toni Cade Bambara: it's other things that have gone wrong in the movie that have a fix, in um, that are in the script I assume because they do validate and reflect uh, experiences of that period.
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Toni Cade Bambara: But that's not true, I think, of the romance, particularly. We always seemed wimpy, bougie.
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Pearl Bowser: So that, that, the construct of melodrama is the same as mainstream cinema.
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Louis Massiah: Well, I guess the difference might be, for me, I mean,-- I think the contract with the melodrama may be similar.
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Louis Massiah: But it, in actual acting styles within the melodrama,
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Louis Massiah: I think there's, there's a little bit more space within a Micheaux
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Louis Massiah: than any, uh, miscellaneous black role in Hollywood.
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Louis Massiah: I mean, the Micheaux character may, you know, we talked earlier about some mission driven by sort of, sometimes singular, sort of obsessions.
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Louis Massiah: But still, they're not stereotypical.
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Louis Massiah: There may be types, like the guy who's in both in uh,--
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[[Cross Talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Bougie Tatum.
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Louis Massiah: Yeah, right. He's both "Symbol of the Unconquered" and "Within Our Gate."
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Louis Massiah: There's a type, but it's not necessarily a stereotype.
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Pearl Bowser: Would you say that Micheaux is not concerned with the negative positive images,
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Pearl Bowser: but projecting somehow another multi-layered character? It's not a pure stereotype.
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Louis Massiah: Right, it's not, it's not a, uh,-- [[Cross Talk]]
Pearl Bowser: If it isn't a stereotype then what is it?
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Toni Cade Bambara: A stocktype.
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Louis Massiah: Stocktype, stocktype might be a better word.
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Louis Massiah: And uh, I don't know. Again, I really have to make these qualifications.
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Louis Massiah: I don't know, I don't know enough of Micheaux's work to uh, to say,
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Louis Massiah: you know, that throughout the range of it, it's true.
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Louis Massiah: But it seems to me that the characters,-- uh,
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Louis Massiah: I'm drifting. It seems to me the characters are--, they're not stereotypical; they're not negative limited stereotypes;
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Louis Massiah: they really have room to develop somewhat within that. And it's a singular development,
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Louis Massiah: but they have room to develop from beginning to end.
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Louis Massiah: And also just because they're more involved in the plot, you get to see them over time, compared to a small window.
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Pearl Bowser: Do you think these stories relate to the black experience of that period
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Pearl Bowser: in a way that directly spoke to the audience? To the intended audience?
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think in that period, that blue's music spoke directly to people's experience,
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Toni Cade Bambara: and my evidence for that is that people used it. They used the songs to iron by; they used the songs to talk to each other.
Toni Cade Bambara: I think the music more than the books, spoke to the experience.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think magazines, rather than books, spoke to the experience.
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Louis Massiah: And poetry.
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Toni Cade Bambara: The poetry was used, and was recited in church; it was recited in school; it was recited at the dinner table.
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Toni Cade Bambara: The poetry had a vitality. That was also true of dance.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think it's less true of books. And I think it is,-- depends on what films we're talking about.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think it's less true of films, but I think our standards; we use a different standard for the film and theater.
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Toni Cade Bambara: That is to say, the theater of that period, that people - I'm talking about the 20s and 30s - that people talk about in their diaries and in their letters
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Toni Cade Bambara: were dramas that spoke to the issue of lynchings, campaigns against syphilis, or the situation of orphans, and foster children.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Issues; they had and there were other plays that spoke to-- that were heroic
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Toni Cade Bambara: on Dessalines, Toussaint; those kinds of pageants.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And there were other types of plays that one went to
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Toni Cade Bambara: because you were intelligent and cultured, and maybe you were a school teacher.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I'm a little pressed as to what those plays might be.
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Toni Cade Bambara: But they did not speak directly, nor did you demand that they speak directly to your everyday ordinary experience.
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Toni Cade Bambara: In like manner, I think the movies, we ask something slightly different of them, and I think Micheaux,
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Toni Cade Bambara: certainly "Within Our Gates", try to deliver on both things. I'll just mention two things, rather than get into a bunch.
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Toni Cade Bambara: There is the social conscious peace, the socially responsible cinema piece, in that film recodes "Birth of a Nation."
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Toni Cade Bambara: It sets the record straight as to who raped who, etc. And then there's this melodrama, um, romance piece,
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Toni Cade Bambara: that is always very interesting, particularly in this show, but I think it's kind of true in the other films I'm thinking of,
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Toni Cade Bambara: which is "Scar of Shame", "Letter to Midnight"; things like that.
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Toni Cade Bambara: But there's a lot of backstory, um, in the characters; it didn't just happen. The [[inaudible]] stops in that way.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Their history is particular and will get it in backstory rather than their history comes other appearances and other kinds of genres.
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Toni Cade Bambara: So he tries to-- [[Cross Talk]]
Pearl Bowser: What do you mean by backstory?
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Toni Cade Bambara: We get, for example, in "Within Our Gates", it's the backstory,that's for me, the real meat of the, the real meat of the movie.
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Toni Cade Bambara: When we get the backstory of Jasper Landry's daughter, her backstory consists of several things; one, her education.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And that allows Micheaux to talk about issues of the day, you know, the urgency of saving the black land grant colleges,
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Toni Cade Bambara: for example, which is one his concerns. Also part of her backstory is that she was trained as a bookkeeper,
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Toni Cade Bambara: and then that helps in the plot, because she finds that Mr. Griddlestone, white plantation owner, is trying to cook books.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Also, part of her backstory is that she's not the daughter, or she may or may not be the daughter of her foster parents, the Landrys.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And what's particular, about, what sort of characters, one of the many characteristic of Micheaux in the few films I've seen is the character have a plot of backstory.
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Toni Cade Bambara: They didn't just pop on the screen. You think you know them, and that they are familiar types, but their backstory fills in plot;
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Toni Cade Bambara: it fills in more than plot, it helps to answer a lot of questions for the audience about-- It makes a connection to what am I trying to say, social reality.
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Louis Massiah: Right, I mean, as we're look at some of "The Unconquered" today, I was just thinking that, there's an extraordinary amount of exposition here, I mean like,
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Louis Massiah: there's the action in the first scene of the father dying,
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Louis Massiah: and then it was, then the next sort of vague kind of dramatic scene was the mother, you know, seeing the son,
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Louis Massiah: you know, who was passing for white
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Louis Massiah: [[?]], courting the white woman, and you know, sort of ashamed that his black mother is approaching and choking her.
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Louis Massiah: But beyond that, there was a great deal of talking, and background information that was going on, and,
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Louis Massiah: it just seemed to me that, by our standards now, what, what drama is; I mean, there's so much filling in the past.
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Louis Massiah: And, you know, it does seem that I keep thinking about producers today.
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Louis Massiah: You know, white executive producers today, working with black filmmakers, are annoyed that there's this need to not just take things.
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Louis Massiah: And looking at a specific incident related to today, rather than looking at that specific incident, not understanding why filmmakers want to go back, instead of - go back to Africa to look at 1992,
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Toni Cade Bambara: Mhm, mhm.
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Louis Massiah: and maybe's it's that same feeling, of always needing to contextualize, and maybe it's our own sense, of how history and characters need to develop, and maybe that's why all that exposition is there.
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Louis Massiah: Although it is, it's interesting. But it goes against a sort of action, dramatic, you know, uh, trajectory. Which maybe is, maybe a difference between Euro and African American films of that period.
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Pearl Bowser: Would you-- how would you define that distinctiveness, that, I'm gonna use the word, "Afro-centricity".
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Louis Massiah: If you need to, full contextualize characters so that, you know, the character played by Chenault is not just a colored man passing for white, but a, there's a long history.
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Louis Massiah: Or you know, the daughter, the granddaughter's not - you know, you get a sense of where she came from, and then has much to do with how the actions play out as, you know, the specifics of what's happening during that time.
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Pearl Bowser: And you wouldn't describe that as something that was, unique, to--
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Louis Massiah: Again, I mean, and in full honesty, Pearl, I don't know if I've seen enough films to say that, but certainly in looking at, definitely "Within Our Gate",
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Louis Massiah: and with this film, there's this feeling that there's an extraordinary amount of exposition,
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Louis Massiah: or you know, recontextualizing, and it's not uninteresting. I mean, I know, in drama classes, in filmmaking classes,
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Louis Massiah: they'll say, you know, there's too much time with your exposition.
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Louis Massiah: It is interesting to me, so, I don't know, maybe it is an afrocentric approach.
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Pearl Bowser: Is that something you would describe, as um,
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Pearl Bowser: something that has transcended the time
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Pearl Bowser: that is a kind of legacy of Micheaux. I mean, would you [[quake at?]] Mr. Goodman?
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes, yeah.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think one of the ways-- One of the characteristics of um, say, independent black films in this country
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Toni Cade Bambara: I'm thinking particularly of what we used to call the "Watts films", and the things that have come after that is, again, the necessity of a context.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Nothing happens in the vacuum, nothing happens with reference to another movie, but rather in connection with social reality.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And I think one of the ways in which it is, transmitted or gotten over is not necessarily for backstory, but rather the handling of space.
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Toni Cade Bambara: For example, um, in industry films, you either get idealized spaced, as in the westerns, or you get hidden space as in the dramas.
Toni Cade Bambara:
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That is to say, the camera establishes what block we're in, usually what class;
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Toni Cade Bambara: what city we're in; what class the players belong to, or have an affinity to.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And everything closes down, and with the use of window frames and door frames, and camera close-ups, we reduce everything to the psychological.
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Toni Cade Bambara: All conflict is psychological, not systemic. Therefore, all resolutions can be resolved by strength or a lawyer or a bullet.
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Toni Cade Bambara: But not say, by societal transformation.
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Toni Cade Bambara: In African cinema, we're especially aware of characters and their circumstances, so you get a different type of shock, and a different sense of space.
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Toni Cade Bambara: In "Daughters of the Dust," for example, and I think it's a very African handling of space.
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Toni Cade Bambara: No character is um, background to any other, we don't get a foregrounded hero dominating space,
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Toni Cade Bambara: and everybody else being other'd in the background, having their elbows falling out of space, or being in a blur.
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Toni Cade Bambara: We get shared space, and the camera opens up so we can at the collective point of view.
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Pearl Bowser: The focus is on-- the community and groups of-- [[Cross Talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: The focus is on the group; the focus is also on social space, as opposed to why--
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Toni Cade Bambara: it's social space, and it's shared space, and it's democratic space, as opposed to idealized space, hierarchical space, dominated by one hero kind of things.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And if I haven't looked at this question - the way that you raise it is interesting- But I think it's core is the handling of space.
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Toni Cade Bambara: The way we handle space, that allows us to make that connection as the spectator to make the connection between this story and contiguous reality.
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Louis Massiah: Also, going along with that, I mean, as you're talking to me, I was thinking that,
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Louis Massiah: this notion of exposition is really going against this sort of relentless pushing forward of narrative.
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Louis Massiah: I mean, and when I think of Burnett's work, "My Brother's Wedding", or "Killer Sheep", that social space, the interaction and the way it's relating is so much of the beauty of the story.
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Louis Massiah: I mean, it's not actually, you know, plot going from A to B to C to D.
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Louis Massiah: Although it's there, it's not really how, uh --
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Toni Cade Bambara: How we get there.
Louis Massiah: How we get there.
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Louis Massiah: Even, you know, she's got a habit. I mean it's not the actual narrative;
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Louis Massiah: it's not all that wonderful, but what I think what made that film so noticeable was the interrelations of characters,
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Louis Massiah: jow they, how they,-- not necessarily things that were pushing story forward, but things that sort of established who those characters were, getting a better sense of--
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Pearl Bowser: - Playing against each other--
Louis Massiah: Right, and setting up, you know--
00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.000
Toni Cade Bambara: -- who are we?
Louis Massiah: Yeah, who are we.
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:29.000
Louis Massiah: I mean, any story could do, in some ways, as long as we get to know who we are in the process.
00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:39.000
Pearl Bowser: How-- how-- how does one get to know who we are, thinking yet again about these early films of the 20s,
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:49.000
Pearl Bowser: Oscar Micheaux and others. How does one get to now, who we are, in this, within the context of the films?
00:24:49.000 --> 00:25:06.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Is there [[car honks]] some kind of common expression, some kind of common ground that the film makers used to get that idea of who we are? If you used the term of the period, "racial uplift" as an operative?
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:16.570
Toni Cade Bambara: How does Micheaux get to that racial uplift in his films?
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:25.000
[[Background noise throughout]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Let's see.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Toni Cade Bambara: That's the question I was raising to you, girl. [[laughter]]
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.000
Pearl Bowser: Well, what did you think about it in terms of "Within Our Gates?"
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:39.000
Pearl Bowser: There is a racial uplift theme in the back in the backstory there.
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:48.000
Louis Massiah: I think that there are two ways, I mean certainly by looking at, you know, presenting the history, breaking out from the false view of history--
00:25:48.000 --> 00:26:00.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes [[crosstalk]]
Louis Massiah: the false view of the Klan and raping and lynching, you know, what that was about, instead of saying, "Ok, we're not going to go with--"
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:01.000
Toni Cade Bambara: That version.
00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Louis Massiah: That version. We're going to go with, you know, a true version. Same for, you know, I think. now what Micheaux is saying about the Klan in "Symbol", is--
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:30.000
Louis Massiah: he's saying that terrorism is about econom-- its, you know,
Toni Cade Bambara: economic [[crosstalk]]
Louis Massiah: its economic uh, the roots are economic; it's not even vaguely racial. You know. [[laughter]]
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.000
Louis Massiah: It's really about economic subjugation.
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:46.000
Pearl Bowser: In "Symbol of the Unconquered", the whitecapping is used by, in a racial group.
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:47.000
Louis Massiah: Right.
00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:49.000
Pearl Bowser: Blacks and whites against--
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:56.000
Louis Massiah: As a means of control and economic subjugation and oppression.
00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Toni Cade Bambara: You were going to say there's was another way. You said there were two ways of...a racial uplift.
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:05.000
Louis Massiah: Umm
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:08.000
Toni Cade Bambara: You looking at something else [[tapping]]
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:23.000
Louis Massiah: I think--
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:11.000
00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:15.000
Louis Massiah: What, uh, sorry. This--
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:23.000
Toni Cade Bambara: One of the others gets through with this quest theme, that forever pops up, that people are not miscellaneous;
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:33.000
Toni Cade Bambara: they're not meandering about; they're not simply encountering each other out of a melodramatic wimpy romance thing.
00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Everybody has an agenda. I mean his major players have an agenda.
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Louis Massiah: Mhm.
Toni Cade Bambara: Both good guys and seemingly not so good guys. And, um--
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:56.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I was looking at Exile, looking at Body and Soul. Let me, hmm. Let me just stick to these two. Umm--
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:04.000
Toni Cade Bambara: The 1uest, yeah, he has a--, its always an economic, he always got an economic argument going on here. Umm--
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:14.000
Toni Cade Bambara: People are after land. I want to look at Within Our Gates; that's a lot less ambiguous.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:27.000
Toni Cade Bambara: One of the quests that we can read in the exegesis of the film, but its also, its internal and outside of the text, is this education.
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:40.000
Toni Cade Bambara: The necessity for Black folk to take responsibility for, an Afrocentric, if you will, curriculum for autonomy and education.
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Self determination and education. That's one of the quests of the hero, I think.
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:50.000
Pearl Bowser: In this case its the heroine.
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:51.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Well, its both.
00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:52.000
Pearl Bowser: It's both.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Is the hero a doctor or something?
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:58.000
[[crosstalk]]
Pearl Bowser: The doctor is--
Toni Cade Bambara: He's a doctor and--
Louis Massiah: Right, right.
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:04.000
Toni Cade Bambara: --and he's frequently meeting the newspaper, and he keeps track of the education. He is very concerned there.
00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:13.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And then she, of course, is actively engaged in Pine School. The Piney Woods School--
Louis Massiah: [[crosstalk]] Right.
00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:14.000
Pearl Bowser: which was actually a school.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah, the Piney Woods, its still, yeah that's Lynn Whatley's, the Whatley family's school.
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:31.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And um, and that-- It is her quest for education that propels the plot. She will now go out and look for money, in order to fund the school.
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:41.000
Louis Massiah: Certainly the very characters, I mean seeing those characters on the screen, in the climate of, you know, what characters- what black characters may have been in Hollywood films.
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Louis Massiah: That in and of itself had to be up there.
Toni Cade Bambara: [[Cross talk]] Good grief
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:46.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah.
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:55.000
Louis Massiah: And to confirm the existence of that, diverse, and caring, and committed African American community.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:08.000
Pearl Bowser: How important or deliberate do you think, Micheaux's use of, I want to say actuality, but that's perhaps not the right word, but
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:18.000
Pearl Bowser: in this instance, of the Pine Wood School, for instance. Or acts of opening a story, placing it in the context of Tuskegee--
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Louis Massiah: [[agreement]] Mhm
Pearl Bowser: -or uh, Hampton Institute. How --
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:27.830
Toni Cade Bambara: I think that is very characteristic of black people [[clears throat]]
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:38.000
Pearl Bowser: I think that it's characteristic, even of our science fiction writers, and even of our so-called magic realism writers.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:49.000
Toni Cade Bambara: There is no need, or no desire, to ever depart so much from base reality or action, it's just, the impulse is not there.
00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:57.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Uh, the impulse rather, I think, is to illuminate what is happening in actuality and to hook it.
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:04.000
Toni Cade Bambara: You will, I mean, you'll find those hooks in Sam Delaney. I don't want to get into a huge argument with somebody. [[Chuckle]]
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:12.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Umm. So yes, it will be Booker T. Washington. We will hear, we will hear about Honey Roots School - which is actual.
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:20.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We will, in "Within Our Gates", we will see when the doctor hero looks at the newspapers.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:30.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We see actual clippings that were familiar to, to people of that period as documented in the diaries of Alice Dunbar and others who kept journals.
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:37.000
Toni Cade Bambara: In, in "Symbol of the Unconquered," what is it? Umm.
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:42.000
Toni Cade Bambara: What is it in the "Symbol of the Unconquered"? Girl?
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:48.000
Pearl Bowser: Getting back to, to the land. Is that--
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Toni Cade Bambara: No there's some other actual, actual --
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:58.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Oh! The, the prospector? Was it the guy-- Mason? Mason who found uh, that discovered oil. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: the homeless vet-- The prospector.- They found uh, they discovered oil.
Louis Massiah: Mmm.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I think it's not only shrewd to do it um, I think, I think that, I think that's a very basic impulse.
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:11.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And I think it only becomes questionable when we're looking at some of the standards.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:22.000
Toni Cade Bambara: It's very characteristic of, I mean, black people in novels constantly tipping their hats to actual characters and to events.
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:30.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Umm - At the moment, I was, Beloved crossed my mind. Toni Morrison's Beloved crossed my mind for a moment.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Louis Massiah: The boys and men start building a school, you know, pulls in Booker T. Washington. [[laughter]] You know what I mean?
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:39.000
Pearl Bowser: That novel.
Louis Messiah: Yeah, yeah.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:47.000
Pearl Bowser: But in film and cinema, it's an experience in a group situation, unlike reading a novel.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:53.000
Louis Massiah: Well, it's also like seeing those -- who has those Jesus pictures?
Toni Cade Bambara:
Pearl Bowser: [in unison] Professor Williams!
Louis Massiah: Yeah!
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:58.000
Louis Massiah: I mean like seeing Jesus in some ways in a film is reality.
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:00.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes.
Louis Massiah: It's a similar kind of thing
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:08.000
Pearl Bowser: It is not so much seeing Jesus figures as it is seeing the style of which the religion is practiced
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:12.000
Pearl Bowser: Right. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: It's called cultural specific. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: That abysmal-- Culture specific is familiar. That's-- That's the word I was looking at.
Louis Massiah: Right.
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:21.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I remember when Hallelujah - is it in Hallelujah? Yeah, in Hallelujah, there was a-- I can't think of his name;
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Toni Cade Bambara: the brother who was the consultant to Vidor, and there were these scenes of this static religion,
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Toni Cade Bambara: not only the baptisms, but I don't know what to call em-- those moments, I guess, I would say, possession or getting happy, or getting the spirit,
Pearl Bowser: Ah-ha.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and people who was telling me this, I guess my roommother's [[??]],
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Toni Cade Bambara: the people, folks, went to see the film time and time and time again
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:50.000
Toni Cade Bambara: just for those scenes because that was validation.
Pearl Bowser: They were real.
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.000
Pearl Bowser: They were real.
Toni Cade Bambara: They were real. They were real.
00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:58.000
Toni Cade Bambara: So they validate the experience. So they would reflect the-- mostly validate the experience.
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:05.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah. What was that, 1927, I guess? 29.
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:08.000
Pearl Bowser: 29. Hallelujah 1929.
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:15.000
Louis Massiah: But, you know I guess, I am going away from the aesthetics and content for just a second.
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:25.000
Louis Massiah: One of the reasons I am most interested in Micheaux is; I hate to-- using the word "business man" sort of limits him,
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:33.000
Louis Massiah: but really, in the context of being-- trying to be self-sufficient, but I never really totally managed to do that.
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:42.000
Louis Massiah: But working within this United States society as an African American and working specifically in the African-American community,
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Louis Massiah: and continuing, you know, for decades, you know, that to me is a--
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:53.000
Toni Cade Bambara: --is a very usable model.
Louis Massiah: --very useful model!
00:34:53.000 --> 00:35:00.000
Louis Massiah: and certainly, it's really in that role that I sorta see him.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Louis Massiah: I mean, the film making is what he did. But it's the particulars of his craft, but that kind of self-sufficiency and-- persistence. Yeah. [[inaudible]] [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Persistence.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:25.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And then these ploys. As I would argue again, that the use of actuality is not only characteristic and impulsive,
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Toni Cade Bambara: but I think it is also shrewd to do; it makes it timely. And I think that is also very; [[inadible]] saying the same thing,
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:41.000
Toni Cade Bambara: very characteristic of Black Art practice, to not be concerned about immortality
00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: but to comment on-- to be timely, to be of use and of service, immediately to the community,
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:54.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and Micheaux use of incidents; his use frequently in films,
00:35:54.000 --> 00:36:03.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I am more concerned with trying to read what pharmacy is that in the background and that it comes through so clearly indicates that he wants us to know.
00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:10.000
Toni Cade Bambara: that that's the particular pharmacy because maybe that pharmacist helped bankroll this film
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:16.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and maybe that's where his last film was seen.
00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I think that's very shrewd and useful. The way in which he dismantled or recycled films. Made use of people who were in town.
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:35.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Who was-- I am trying to think of who--
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:41.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I cant' remember what film-- Well, of course, what do I have to wonder, the girl is sitting right here. [cross talk]] [
Pearl Bowser: What-- What-- What--
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:51.000
Toni Cade Bambara: films that have inserts from-- I'll make it up because I can't think of it, but from the Cotton Club or There's a Choir in Town, and he'll use some of that footage,
00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:54.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and of course, if your in that choir, how can you not go see the film?
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:04.000
Pearl Bowser: There is another operative there that's very interesting about Micheaux's work
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Pearl Bowser: and how he made the little bit of money that he had work for him, and one is the way in which he was able to capture his audience.
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:25.000
Pearl Bowser: If he put out a call for people to appear at a certain nightclub because he was going to be shooting in that space, and the people would arrive.
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Pearl Bowser: They could then return to see the finished film, which would indeed play in town,
00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:38.000
{SPEAKER nae="Pearl Bowser"} and thus, not only was the club identified, but one could see your next door neighbor [[crosstalk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Ah, ha. Oneself. [[Laughing]]
Pearl Bowser: or oneself in the movies.
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:45.000
Louis Massiah: And you could tell your next door neighbor down the street that-- [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: Like you were part of a whole glamorous facade.
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:53.000
Pearl Bowser: But there is something that is always kind of a begging question in my mind about Micheaux's work
00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:03.000
Pearl Bowser: and that is that not just the impulse for racial uplift, but his seeming need to correct,
00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:13.000
Pearl Bowser: to be the moralist on one level, but always trying to redirect and reconstruct;
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:24.000
Pearl Bowser: not just the image on film, but the image that was operative within the community,
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:27.000
Pearl Bowser: and trying to correct those images.
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:34.000
Pearl Bowser: In one of his novels, he makes a statement about one of his greatest goals
00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:43.000
Pearl Bowser: is to prove to a certain group of my acquaintances, meaning race people; [[??]] people;
00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:53.000
Pearl Bowser: that a man can be anybody. He can be anything, right?
Pearl Bowser: He only needs to throw himself into, and so achieve, so that--
00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:00.000
Pearl Bowser: And that's the kind of theme that seems to pervade many of Micheaux's films;
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:07.000
Pearl Bowser: that will to succeed; the need to succeed; the role model.
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:13.000
Pearl Bowser: Micheaux himself is always, Micheaux himself is always a part of that story.
00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Pearl Bowser: I mean, he's the prospector, he's the-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: The homesteader. Uh, huh.
Pearl Bowser: he's the homesteader, he's the book salesman, he's the producer in Swing.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:38.000
Pearl Bowser: So there is this need for corrective and kinda directive impetus to his films within the framework of these typical Hollywood genres.
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Pearl Bowser: Not Hollywood, maybe the typical entertainment mode.
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:51.170
Pearl Bowser: He still pushes in that corrective and directive elements. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: --mode-- --gets his--
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Pearl Bowser: You-- you're nodding your head "Yes." [[Cross Talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: I'm- I'm looking at literature,
Pearl Bowser: You're trying to--
Toni Cade Bambara: I'm looking at films,
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:09.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I mean, I'm looking at songs, I'm looking at-- I look at-- well, what comes to mind, of course, is that-- Well,
00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:16.000
Toni Cade Bambara: of course, a slew of songs that have a fairly Tin Pan Alley outline,
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:28.000
Toni Cade Bambara: that managed to get a whole lot said, or, the way in-- that impulse that we had, typically in the same 20s, taking a sonnet or some other usual form and making it work;
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:39.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Um, stretching its productivity, testing its productivity, can assign and incorporate and accommodate a lynching, protest statement about lynching, which is of course what [[Cord?]] McKay does.
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: " in [[inaudible]]. But I was looking at songs, too, um, when Nina Simone in the 60s
00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:00.000
Toni Cade Bambara: announces as she sits down to play "Mississippi Goddam," this is a show tune; they haven't written the show yet, and gives us that very jumpy, corny, totally predictable, music,
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:11.000
Toni Cade Bambara: you know, oum-pa-pa kinda-- couldn't be cornier, to give us "Mississippi Goddamn," it's absolutely in the tradition of improvisation,
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:16.000
Toni Cade Bambara: of making mus-- of recycling, of making mus-- It's a, it's just a form-- [[Cross Talk]]
Louis Massiah: it's "and I'm gonna make it work for me."
Pearl Bowser: Exactly, right.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:21.000
Toni Cade Bambara: As George Washington Carver, he's this lovely peanut launcher.
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Pearl Bowser: So you think that's operative in the movies? In, Micheaux's movies?
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Oh yeah, we're just stunned. I think it's characteristic.
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:39.000
Pearl Bowser: Can you think of any other aspects of um, so looking at Micheaux's work,
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:46.000
Pearl Bowser: and are we just looking at Micheaux and not at a number of other people's because he's,
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Pearl Bowser: of all of the race moviemakers - African Americans moviemakers - was the most productive,
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:04.000
Pearl Bowser: and so more of his work seems to have survived. And he was perhaps the most contentious of the lot,
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:12.000
Pearl Bowser: so that things are leaning more obvious in terms of his drive and motivation.
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:26.000
Pearl Bowser: But those things that are characteristic of Micheaux films, that come out of the African American experience;
00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:35.000
Pearl Bowser: they're not - or are they encoded elements of Blackness?
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:44.000
Pearl Bowser: I mean, could you identify a film that has those elements in it as a Black film?
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.000
Pearl Bowser: Is that something that,I guess-- I'm trying to get back at the aesthetic element--
00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:59.000
Pearl Bowser: that is something that one can take as, not as a legacy, but a continuum from Oscar Micheaux's work
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:04.000
Pearl Bowser: and relate it to say, some contemporary?
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:11.000
Pearl Bowser: Spike Lee, for instance. Do you see a parallel between?
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:23.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I, um. One of the reasons I was bringing up music, literature, or whatever, I think that's the test. Can you run - can you run, the characteristic through [[siren blaring]] the total continuum?
00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:30.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And does it also show up? The contemporary film. You know what I mean.
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah,uh, wait til the --
Toni Cade Bambara: Okay.
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:38.000
Pearl Bowser: Patty Watty goes by.
Louis Massiah: Gotta be careful about that; that's an anti-Irish statement. [laughter]
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:48.000
Pearl Bowser: Sorry, I'll retract it. [[??]] of the tape. Um, you wanna repeat what you just said?
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I know that you're attempting to establish a cinematic aesthetic
00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:13.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Um, but I think that prior to that, if we're talking about blackness and encoding Blackness, [00:44:03 ]
Toni Cade Bambara: whatever trait that is, can we trace through all of the culture practice.
00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:17.000
Toni Cade Bambara: That's the test, which is why I keep bringing up magazines, poetry, music, or whatever.
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:22.000
Toni Cade Bambara: If it doesn't withstand that test, then it's questionably Black.
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:31.000
Louis Massiah: Also, too. I mean, because a lot of - It's hard to judge Micheaux in some ways because
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:40.000
Louis Massiah: so much of his work is fragmentary. And the other thing is film really was part of a whole presentation
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:53.000
Louis Massiah: and it's almost like just having certain scenes
00:44:53.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Louis Massiah: of you know August Wilson's plays [[chuckle]] or maybe even, I don't know, and trying to reconstruct.
Toni Cade Bambara: reconstructing [[?]].
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:09.000
Louis Massiah: Or not even that. Or maybe just having a film versions of certain scenes of August Wilson's plays.
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:23.000
Louis Massiah: Part of it was the music, part of it was the context and you know, the entire film. And uh, so - so it's hard to judge.
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:26.000
Pearl Bowser: Does the audience help to define the film?
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Louis Massiah: One thing, that, you know-- The thing, in terms of subject matter, that really always pokes its head out in these Micheaux films is this color thing
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:49.000
Louis Massiah: Which, ah, it's really hard in 1992 to understand all of the intrigues of color,
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:56.000
Louis Massiah: which are so central to the, especially in the 20s, not to say that there aren't color issues in 1992,
00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:01.000
Louis Massiah: but it's still--
Toni Cade Bambara: What was the context? What were the feelings then? What was being said then? What were the jokes?
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:05.000
Louis Massiah: And so much had to do with love, you know.
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes.
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Louis Massiah: I mean, love and color is so-- they're so tied, you know, in Micheaux's films.
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:19.000
Pearl Bowser: Love and color; could you expand on that?
Louis Massiah: Um.
00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:27.000
Toni Cade Bambara: [[siren]] In "Symbol of the Unconquered," for example, Van Allen, the hero prospector,
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Toni Cade Bambara: his reluctance to respond to Eva, Eve, the heroin's presence--
00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: her nearness; her obvious attraction to him or certainly her trust; her comfort with him;
00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:57.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and his hanging fully back because he perceives her as white, and then two years later, when he-- after reading the letter
00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:07.180
Toni Cade Bambara: and realizes she's Black, and then we wind down to end of the movie, or what we think is the end of the movie, with the iris out, and on the lovers.
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Pearl Bowser: Uh would you, would you describe that kind of situation which is
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:23.000
Pearl Bowser: frequent in Micheaux's films that sort of identity
00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Louis Massiah: mm hmm [[Cross Talk]]
Pearl Bowser: discovery of a true identity?
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:39.888
Pearl Bowser: Would you describe that as-- as some, I guess, critics of Micheaux or some scholar?
