Interview of Toni Cade Bambara and Louis Massiah, conducted by Pearl Bowser, 1992 August 28, Tape 1, Side 2
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Toni Cade Bambara: --in color. You wanna run that by me once more? [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: No, well-- I'm s--I shouldn't--This is Pearl's question to answer.
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Louis Massiah: It would have been in so much like one drop of blood in Pinkie and all those other sort of Hollywood films.
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Louis Massiah: It's really fantasy. I mean the mulatto, is fantasy, in like--uh, "Steamboat", that's--or it was--"Sh--
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[[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: "Showboat." [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: "Showboat."- [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: "Showboat", right.
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Louis Massiah: Is--is a complete--bizarre. It's a non-existent entity.
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Louis Massiah: Whereas, you know, the black--the mulatto folks, or whatever, in the the Micheaux films are real people.
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Louis Massiah: I mean they're more real [[laughs]] people, and --
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Toni Cade Bambara: What is it about Julie, in "Showboat", that's fantasy?
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Louis Massiah: Uh, um.
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[SILENCE] She's so s--, she's --
Pearl Bowser: Exotic. She's--
Louis Massiah: She's exotic.
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Louis Massiah: She doesn't have any real roots. She's not particularly Black.
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Louis Massiah: It's like a-- Number 1, it's a white actress, which is bizarre.
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Louis Massiah: And, there's very little that I can relate to her as a--
Pearl Bowser: Woman of color.
Louis Massiah: Woman of color.
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Louis Massiah:
Toni Cade Bambara: While Micheaux women are, or Micheaux people, men and women, are people of color.
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Louis Massiah: I mean, that's-- They're not acting then. That's who they are.
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Toni Cade Bambara: But when you say, "That's who they are," what do you mean, in terms of the part, the character they are playing on the screen?
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Louis Massiah: Um.
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[SILENCE] Do-- It's sort of-- I-- I-- In "Pinkie" or in "Showboat",
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Louis Massiah: I guess I have to ask you. Do you believe that's a person of color? That Julie's a person of color, or Pinkie's a person of color?
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Toni Cade Bambara: But she has no identity. She has no identity. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: She has no identity.
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Louis Massiah: Even with the, um, with the black mother in "Pinkie." I mean, does that--
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[[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: But the-- "Pinkie" has, um-- I would rather talk about imitation of life. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: --"Imitation of Life." "Imitation of Life." [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: --"Imitation of Life".
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{SPEAKER name= "Louis Massiah"} Who's the-- That's uh,-- [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: Freddy Washington. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah, Freddy Washington, and uh--
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Toni Cade Bambara: One's done with a black actress, in the earlier version, and the later version is white. Yeah. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: the later version it's Susie Comack.
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Toni Cade Bambara: What gives the mulatto, as you will, character, in the sense of identity, is the mother,
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Toni Cade Bambara: and the connectedness in terms of origins of the child, and the mother's rootedness-- rooted, being rooted in the culture.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I don't know about Richard, but she looks like, but uh, the character that she plays is a believable black woman.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Even makes-- I forget the actresses name who plays--
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[[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: Louise Baker. No. Oh. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: No, No. The one who plays the daughter. Watson.
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[[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: In which one? "Imitation" or the "Pink-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: No. The two versions of "Imitation of Life".
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Pearl Bowser: Freddie Washington or Susan Coleman.
Toni Cade Bambara: Susan Coleman. Right.
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Toni Cade Bambara: uhm, it makes Susan Coleman believable, but I mean you- you- you- I guess I make that connection because I haven' t seen both. you have a kind of a continuity there
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Toni Cade Bambara: but that that just that word, the mulatto. When you look at these movies and you see so many characters who look in that specific definition.
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They're light skinned or fair are they mulattos are they all mulattos? if they're all mulattos then, uh, what's the story?
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I mean there's no, there no tension and there's no narrator there. But if the characters are defined in terms of their
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p- what's the word?
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Pearl Bowser: Backstory?
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Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah, the backstory, right. Then the character becomes more than that, that one dimensional face on the screen, which is light.
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Or half white or however you wanna describe it. Do you think that Micheaux, I mean, justifies calling the characters either in "Within Our Gates"
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or "God's Stepchildren" or "Symbol of the Unconquered" Do you think it, somehow or the other, diminishes the character by calling
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her or him a Mulato. I don't know what the term is for a man, is a man also a Mulatto? Because that seems to me one dimensional.
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It's only a reference to color in a kind of, um, I wanna say political but that's not, that's not the right term. It kind of reduces the character to one dimension.
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Louis Massiah: Right. Mulattos such a difficult, y'know, construct anyway, I mean, y'know, race, black and white, is, y'know, the race construct,
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y'know, because of history and necessity, y'know, we've made real. As opposed to African ancestry and European ancestry,
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In race. But Mulatto becomes even, is more difficult because, y'know, the 60s in some ways freed us from that concept in some ways
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It's not... I don't think- or most folks I know don't think, hey this person is a mulatto. Even though someone
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Even though someone, they have one European American parent, and- one white parent and one black parent i guess that's the incorrect term.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Who's term is that?
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Louis Massiah: What?
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Toni Cade Bambara: Who's term is that? Mulatto? I mean, is that-
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Louis Massiah: It's-
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Toni Cade Bambara: It's certainly not a term used-
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Pearl Bowser: It's not our term.
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Toni Cade Bambara: It's not- yeah
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Pearl Bowser: We did not invent biologically nor figuratively.
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Toni Cade Bambara: Is it- in- in one sense the term itself kind of negates that individual in terms of his or her identity, whereas
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there are many instances, in, just looking at Oscar Micheaux films, in which the community embraces, the so-called Mulatto, I mean, what- in Hollywood terms would be called
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the Mulatto figure. I mean, and embraces the character not as different but as-
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Pearl Bowser: One of many.
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Toni Cade Bambara: One of many. Yeah, yeah. and that whole idea of getting over, right, I mean, it's, it's not the tragic mulatto.
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It's the response to, 'well if you can manage to work in the system that will only allow you if you have this particular look
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and you manage to get over, it doesn't take away anything from me' You almost congratulate it cause, you've gotten over-
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[[crosstalk]]
Louis Massiah: [[?]] It's like- Illusions, really [[?]] which is y'know, absolutely no tragedy there whatsoever.
Toni Cade Bambara: right right, you applaud it. [[crosstalk]]
Louis Massiah: Get over it, yeah it's fine.
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Pearl Bowser: Get over and express solidarity as well.
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Louis Massiah: Right.
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Pearl Bowser: I mean Mineon[[?]] does not get over alone, that is to say she's not doing it out of self, purely, self advancement.
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One of the first things we hear her talk about is her suggestion to the producer during this wartime period
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that they make films about Native American warriors. So she was interested always in expanding her use of skin privilege.
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And When Ester [[?]] character comes in the woman, in the booth, in the dark, behind the screen, Mineon expresses solidarity with this woman
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Even though in that set up, the tradition has been, looking at "Singing in the Rain", for example, the tradition has been to humiliate
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is for some woman to become humiliated, as in "Singing in the Rain" when the stagehands raise the curtain on Jene Hagen
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and we can understand that she doesn't have the voice, it's Debbie Reynolds. But of course, in reality, behind Debbie Reynolds is Victoria [[?]]
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In a booth, in the dark, behind the
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Pearl Bowser: I'd like to get back for a moment to this love and color,
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Pearl Bowser: not theme, but the idea of-- [[pauses]]
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Pearl Bowser: Some critics of Micheaux have alluded to his preoccupation with color,
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Pearl Bowser: and it's always within this romantic context
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Pearl Bowser: of man and woman, and the woman is the one rediscovering her identity, or her identity becoming compatible,
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Pearl Bowser: so the story has a happy ending.
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Pearl Bowser: Is that not a kind of simplistic way of looking at Micheaux's films in terms of the way the characters look?
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Pearl Bowser: There's always this illusion that not only is the character a mulatto woman, but she is the beautiful mulatto.
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Pearl Bowser: The, you know-- all kinds of adjectives that go along with that seem to heighten the whiteness of it;
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Pearl Bowser: this kind of standard of beauty. So, that concept, to me, seems to be outside of the culture and not--
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Louis Massiah: In some ways, it's as if 50 years from now, we were to look at--
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Louis Massiah: She's gotta have it as a film that looked at
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Louis Massiah: someone's notion of changing role of women and relationships in the 1980s,
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Louis Massiah: And I think many people will say, "Well, this is kind of simplistic, and it doesn't succeed."
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Louis Massiah: But, you know, as we sort of started out with, I mean that narrative, uh, has currency; you know,
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Louis Massiah: the love and color has currency in the 20s, and the changing role of women in relationships may have currency in the 80s.
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Louis Massiah: But that's not really where the film is resting.
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Louis Massiah: the film is resting on the very fact of its existence; the very fact that you are seeing this very wide variety of characters that you don't see in Hollywood films,
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Louis Massiah: in the recontextualization, sort of political side of the show,
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Louis Massiah: and it's there because it's currently of interest, but I don't that that's --
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Louis Massiah: If one goes to Micheaux and only learns something about, or thinks that the sole gift is to get some kind of understanding
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Louis Massiah: of color consciousness of the 20s, I think you're missing the weight and the value of Micheaux.
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Toni Cade Bambara: And wouldn't you say, Pearl, that those critics who, um, reduce the work of Micheaux
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Toni Cade Bambara: to the one drop of color preoccupation of it more in the films of the sound period. It's films of the sound period.
[SILENCE]
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Pearl Bowser: Um, yes, yes. And it sort of swings the podium back to dismissing the work
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Pearl Bowser: because of the poor production values which are very obvious, and you do it on two levels.
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Pearl Bowser: You dismiss them because they're not just low-budget,
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Pearl Bowser: but they're, they break all the rules so to speak.
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,
Pearl Bowser: So you don't have to, you don't explore the films for themselves in terms of trying to contextualize them,
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Pearl Bowser: you just dismiss them because they don't fit into the mold, um--
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Pearl Bowser: We also have to remember that so much of Oscar Michaeux's work has only just begun to surface
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Pearl Bowser: and a very important part of his work during the Silent Era when, say the technology was not an impediment
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Pearl Bowser: to his telling a story and making a film and getting his message across.
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Pearl Bowser: The fact that those films are only just beginning to surface,
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Pearl Bowser: I think is forcing us to look at Michaeux again differently,
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Pearl Bowser: and perhaps to see his work in a clearer light,
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Pearl Bowser: and to critique the films, and not simply to dismiss them because of low production values or whatever.
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Toni Cade Bambara: So, that we see in the group of films done in the Silent Era, a more complex handling of a color question?
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Pearl Bowser: I think so. I think not only is it more complex handling of a color question,
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Pearl Bowser: but the catch is themselves, the black characters on the screen;
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Pearl Bowser: the African American experience on the screen is explored on many different levels, even within one film within our [[gates?]].
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Pearl Bowser: There are so many levels of the characters in that film that are a part of the social reality, not only of the 20s,
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Pearl Bowser: but still a certain relevancy for it today. We're forced to look at his films and his work differently
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Pearl Bowser: because those, I mean, looking at it within our gates today against the background,
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Pearl Bowser: the backstories of what was happening in the press at the time; how Michaeux was affected by it, could not have,
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Pearl Bowser: but otherwise, could not have otherwise been affected by what was going on around him, with lynching, and rioting;
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Pearl Bowser: and just the horror the lynching-- the details that were prevalent in the press. [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: [[Birth of the nation?]] [[inaudible]] [[Press?]]
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Pearl Bowser: It wasn't simply a word that we associate today; "Lynching," or "Lynching B." Right? [[horns honking]]
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Pearl Bowser: That doesn't conjure up any horrible pictures, [[horns honking]] but when you read the headlines of the newspapers,
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Pearl Bowser: in 1919, even before that, up to 1921; [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: Um, uh. [[inaudible]] Um, uh.
Pearl Bowser: and you come face to face with the [[crashing sound]]
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Pearl Bowser: brutality mentioned, and the description, details of what that act was;
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Pearl Bowser: not just mutilations and burnings and whatnot, and had not regard or respect for whether it was a child or a woman,
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Pearl Bowser: and it wasn't only about mentioning a man because he had the protecting of white womanhood.
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Pearl Bowser: When you see all of that in the background of these films, they take on a different meaning.
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Pearl Bowser: You almost want to think of them as protest films
Toni Cade Bambara: Yeah.
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Pearl Bowser: And heightening the consciousness of the people of that day as they are [[??]] capable of heightening the consciousness.
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Pearl Bowser: Those two particular films, "Within Our Gates," and "Symbol of the Unconquered." [[cross talk]] {Unknown speaker} Symbol--
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Pearl Bowser: But what always amazes me is what we are missing; he made like twenty-five films, silent films;
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Pearl Bowser: what we're missing in all those other titles that have yet to surface.
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Pearl Bowser: And uh-- Well.
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Louis Massiah: Do you believe there is an African-American aesthetic, Pearl?
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Pearl Bowser: I think there is something inherently--
[SILENCE] I think there is something embodied in the world,
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Pearl Bowser: in a range of time; that the artist is affected by the icons of that generation,
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Pearl Bowser: r whether it be music, or literature, another filmmaker, or whatever;
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Pearl Bowser: that-- that [[inaudible]] informs his work.
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Pearl Bowser: And when the artist is being - I'll use your words - "focused on the particularities of the culture,"
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Pearl Bowser: it's expressed in his work. For me, that is a kind of aesthetic. It's not the total aesthetic; it doesn't define someone's work,
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Pearl Bowser: um, it doesn't embrace everybody, but it does in it's-- it does in it's, um-- specificity define a kind of aesthetic;
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Pearl Bowser: a commonality in experiences; of responses and reactions to the style of its music; literature. And I think--
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Louis Massiah: Right, but-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: [[inaudible]] [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: I kinda-- I kinda read what you two are saying in a slightly different way, which might sound a little "Clyde Taylorist,"
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Louis Massiah: in that I don't know if the body of work in film is strong-- is, is, is quantity-- is deep enough.
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Louis Massiah: When you compare how-- Music is a continual, you know, day and night activity, in terms of the African-American community.
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{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah You know, like there are twenty thousand; a hundred thousand songs being performed somewhere, on the radio, in people's minds, you know, millions,
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Louis Massiah: millions, right now. [[loud cracking noise]] But films; how many are being made right now, at this moment? And, uh--
Pearl Bowser: --or in the 40s.
Louis Massiah: --or in the 40's?
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Louis Massiah: or in-- or, you know, going back to, you know, to the turn of the century whenever, you know, [[Mesbouche??]], [[laughter]] the Algerian filmmaker [[did??]] today.
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Louis Massiah: I, ah, so I think that's why we'll find that commonality form in other, I'd even go so far to say,
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Louis Massiah: in other narrative structures like music, like literature; especially music. And-- Yeah.
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Louis Massiah: But I think that's where we're going to find that African-American aesthetic; that broader view of art.
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Pearl Bowser: But if-- if-- if you think, um, of the arts, and you might be stretching it to think of-- Well, no.
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Pearl Bowser: The film is an art form, too. Whether the filmmaker, the practitioner, achieves a level of art, is something else.
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Pearl Bowser: But there are certain undeniable-- ah, yeah. [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: Storytelling.
Pearl Bowser: certain undeniable elements in there that one can equate.
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Pearl Bowser:
[SILENCE] The films do not happen in isolation of that total cultural experience.
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Pearl Bowser: Even if the experience is denying,
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Pearl Bowser: and the preferred expression comes from the majority culture,
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Pearl Bowser: there ought to be some elements that one can point to that is cultural specific, or is identifiably-- [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: Um. Oh, yes. I think--
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Louis Massiah: I think there are. I think think there are. We-- We hit on some earlier.
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Louis Massiah: But I think the difficulty I'm feeling is trying to connect Micheaux
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Louis Massiah: in very, very tangible ways, beyond situational ways, to Charles Burnett.
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Louis Massiah: You know, to say, "Okay. We can set-- These are the traits that these films all have all in common, so that we look at
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Louis Massiah: the body of Burnett's work, and the body of Micheaux's work, or Julie Dash's work, in there, as well.
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Louis Massiah: These are the things that make-- are in common.
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Louis Massiah: Now Julie Dash is someone who draws on history; art history; African-American art history heavily in her work. 00:23:31] Burnett does that, I guess, with music. But I don't think that's-- I mean, that sort of very intentional sort of use of forms is different, I think, than-- Than the-- Right. Right. So-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: Than the discovering the discernible features.
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Pearl Bowser: We didn't hear what your definition of the aesthetic-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: O, I was saying I was some-- that I was having trouble with the test
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Toni Cade Bambara: for an aesthetic being discernible features in Micheaux, their reappearance or singing echo
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Toni Cade Bambara: in four or five films, or the work of two or three filmmakers present.
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Toni Cade Bambara: I think, one, there has to be continuum; a large body of work over time.
00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:39.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And we discover culturally specific responses to social specifics,
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:52.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and then we observe patterns of imagery, or ways of-- or particular ways of technology, or particular ways of storytelling. [[loud noise]]
00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:00.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Um, in the literature, and there are certainly still lots of arguments
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Toni Cade Bambara: as to how the African-American tradition and narrative prose is being defined,
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:14.000
Toni Cade Bambara: particularly as we discover and reclaim more women writers; particularly [[inaudible]] writers
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:24.000
Toni Cade Bambara: of the turn of the century, of the 20s and 30s, that just shake up the previous notions of what we meant by "the tradition," and even "the aesthetic."
00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:31.000
Toni Cade Bambara: But if we see characters; there are certain obligatory characters, let's say,
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Toni Cade Bambara: reappearing characters in the "freedom literature", or what we have been told to call the "slave narratives."
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:52.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And we see them again, in say, Ellison. That is not enough to argue aesthetic,
00:25:52.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Toni Cade Bambara: tradition, or continuum, but when we read Ellison, we re-experience not only the narratives of the 18th century;
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:11.000
Toni Cade Bambara: we are experiencing, also, the folk-- the fable-- the folk fable tradition and cycle,
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and we're also experiencing James Johnson's "Invisible-- "Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man," where we get "the cloak of invisibility."
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:30.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We're experiencing, also, Richard Wright, the man "underground invisibility." We experience a long history, and even-- and so,
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:41.000
Toni Cade Bambara: what is the test? The test is that you should be able to reach down into any period of our literature - and here's looking down at characters for a moment - and pluck up the major characters,
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and push them up against the pantheon; the folk characters, and we're going to find Br'er Rabbit, a trickster figure;
00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:59.000
Toni Cade Bambara: we're going to find some rare bear; some jerk. We're going to find High John the Conqueror, or Conjured Woman, or the Creature Man, or Stag Lee or Shine;
00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:11.000
Toni Cade Bambara: we're going to find somebody; we're going to find these pieces of the Afro-American personality in the cast of characters.
00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:20.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We can also push those characters against another pantheon out of your book like [[Oija??]], Oakland, Ocean.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:31.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We also can push those cast of characters up against the Egyptian pantheon - Isis, Horis - depending on, again, what kind of quest narrative we have here.
00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Toni Cade Bambara: In other words, it's not enough to-- [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: --single out--
Toni Cade Bambara: --to single out five features in the body of one filmmaker,
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:56.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and argue, and um, argue the notion of an aesthetic if all of those features reappear; distinct; we're talking about distinct features,
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:02.000
Toni Cade Bambara: and they reappear in the bodies of two or three other filmmakers, in another period. [[Unknown speaker]] Hey.
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:05.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We need a much bigger pool.
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:22.000
Pearl Bowser: Then what's the importance of the us seeing Micheaux; what's the continuum, if there is one, that connects him or doesn't connect him-- to the contemporary?
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:31.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I think, in addition to what Louie has said, is that he has been a model of the business minded cultural worker with an agenda,
00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:38.000
Toni Cade Bambara: with an agenda, with a political agenda, if we will, or a political aesthetic agenda. [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: And he was successful at it. You know what I mean. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: And he was successful. Yes. It got it clear; got it set. Yes.
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:44.000
Louis Massiah: Anyway, DuBois' "After Birth of a Nation," basically said,
00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:52.000
Louis Massiah: "Hey, we can--" When the First Amendment came out, nobody had even conceived the film,
00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:02.000
Louis Massiah: and we as African-Americans do not have the technology to deal with this new phenomenon in terms of this slander it's heaping upon us,
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Louis Massiah: in terms of what Dixon and Griffith were saying in "Birth of a Nation.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:18.000
Louis Massiah: And Micheaux says go a-- proves it with "Within Our Gate," that, yes we do have the skill and technology,
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:23.000
Louis Massiah: and we can address, you know, the slander.
00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:34.000
Louis Massiah: So, he's successful; he's not a propagandist, but he's successful at politicizing.
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:36.000
Pearl Bowser: Why not a propagandist?
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:42.000
Louis Massiah: I mean, I don't know if he would see himself as a propagandist. But I-- Well--
00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:44.000
Pearl Bowser: It was race propaganda; I mean, they used the term.
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.000
Louis Massiah: Really. Huh. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: Yeah, --the term.
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Pearl Bowser: The dialogue between Lincoln Pictures - George B. Johnson and Oscar Micheaux -
00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Pearl Bowser: was that you can not succeed using race propaganda, using film for race propaganda.
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:14.000
Pearl Bowser: It should be these little achievement-- stories of racial uplift, [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: --stories.
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.000
Pearl Bowser: but not to deal with the contentious questions and issues that are-- [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: and issues--
Pearl Bowser: Yeah.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Pearl Bowser: That then becomes propaganda.
Louis Massiah: Right.
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:27.000
Louis Massiah: So he is not an overt propagandist,
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:40.000
Louis Massiah: but he successful at propaganda, basically, changing perceptions and-- [[inaudible]] [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara and Pearl Bowser: Counter-- Counter dealing. Yeah.
[SILENCE] [[noise in background]]
00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:50.000
Pearl Bowser: So in the final analyze, what is important in the show for filmmakers today?
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:59.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Gee, I thought-- [[laugh]] I thought that was an awfully good answer to that question. [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: It's not--
00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:05.000
Tony Cade Bambara: I think it's-- It think it is now it is more call response; call and response. [[Honk]]
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:13.000
Toni Cade Bambara: He sends out a particular kind of call, as to what is the-- what ought to be the agenda of the motive--
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:23.000
Toni Cade Bambara: the motive impulse; what ought to be the responsibility of the filmmaker; what is the relationship of the filmmaker to the issues of the time;
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:35.000
Toni Cade Bambara: what are the filmmakers relationships to internal - I refuse to use the word "contradictions" - but to internal turmoil with intra community tensions;
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:47.000
Toni Cade Bambara: [[loud noise on stage]] what constitutes a courageous, if you will, relationship to developing technology.
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:56.000
Toni Cade Bambara: He lays out the call, and I think film students, or students of film, today,
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:07.000
Toni Cade Bambara: who are paying attention to Micheaux, make a [[loud noise]] response then. He's a model.
00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:10.000
Pearl Bowser: And you think his work needs to be studied in the context of--
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:12.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Oh, my God. Yes!
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:15.000
Pearl Bowser: a more serious
[SILENCE] and analytical--
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:17.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Absolutely.
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:22.000
Louis Massiah: Certainly,looking at some of the framing tonight-- [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: In the "Symbol of the Unconquered".
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Louis Massiah: Right. In the "Symbol of the Unconquered"; it is appealing. It is, a--
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:39.000
Louis Massiah: Again, I can't [[smacking noise]] put it in any specific African-American context, you know.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Louis Massiah: You have to consider the visual imaging. But it is Micheaux, and it is-- There's an elegance to it.
00:32:49.000 --> 00:33:05.000
Louis Massiah: So, I mean, that-- that's like looking at any artist that you admire. That's good, and Micheaux-- [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: He fulfills his contract-- [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: Right.
Pearl Bowser: to the spectator.
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:14.000
Louis Massiah: I should say-- I should correct myself. DuBois initially felt that uh, uh-- [[cross talk]]
Pearl Bowser: [[laughter]] --we lacked the-- [[noise]] [[cross talk]]
Louis Massiah: Yeah, we lacked technology
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.000
Louis Massiah: and the ability to deal with the slander of film,
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:26.000
Louis Massiah: of this new medium which hadn't even been conceived at in terms of working with the birth of a race crew, with the Tuskegee folks.
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Louis Massiah: He said, "Okay, let's try," although he does pull out and decides that the stage and pageants, mainly "The Star of Ethiopia" would be a more effective way to uplift [[noises on stage]] instead of correct and provide counter images. [[noises on stage]]
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:47.000
[[cuts off]] [[noises on stage]]
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:59.000
Pearl Bowser: So, [[cuts off]] relationships in this period of the 20s.
Louis Massiah: Yeah, yeah. [[noises are being made all around them.]]
Pearl Bowser: It occurs to me as I'm reading Toni Morrison's "Jazz,"-- oh--
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:11.000
Pearl Bowser: and talking to my mother; this is the generation; 1920's it's the first generation that can chose each other; the type; the freedom. You know what I mean?
Louis Massiah: Yeah.
00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:23.000
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"] [[loud noises around them during this part of the conversation all the time]]
Toni Cade Bambara: and you're doing it now in such a different context, I mean whether your parents were free or not.
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:33.000
Toni Cade Bambara: You are doing it a much different context. There were, I mean, on the plantation there were those elders who kept track of whose child was whose.
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:44.580
Toni Cade Bambara: The plantation folk didn't give a damn about who they mated people with. So it was, "Oh, mame."
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.000
Toni Cade Bambara: That's mother and dau— mother and son you got in that cabinet.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:01.000
Um, and then here you are migrating to the city. You don't know who's who.
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:09.000
Louis Massiah: Mm-hmm [[agreement]]
Toni Cade Bambara: You don't know nothing. You just know he looked fine, and you goin' go for that.
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:12.000
[[silence]]
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:21.000
Toni Cade Bambara: After reading that novel, or rather after talking with Toni and she was gettin' ready to break that novel, we drove this country crazy.
00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Pearl Bowser: In what sense?
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:34.000
Toni Cade Bambara: That's what jazz is. All them songs, all the messages, all that talking we would, all that singing we were doing at each other. Come over here and don't shake my peaches if you can't— y'know, y'know?
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Louis Massiah: Right.
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Toni Cade Bambara: We drove this country crazy. I mean, they had a— I'm not surprised them people bound up their dress and bound up their heads with the, with the— they always looked like bandages to me, those head bands.
00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:03.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And jumped out there talking about bitch-ass crazy, and drinking gin, and dancing, and jumping in pools, and climbing in, um, phone booths, and eating gold fish, and goin' over the falls. I think we drove, I think we drove this country crazy.
00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:17.000
Louis Massiah: And even the mid— like when you think of these mid-westerners, like I'm thinking like all these folks I've been talking to, people like Marvel Cooke and Louis Thompson Patterson, that, y'know, knew that they were moving to New York, as soon as they got to be grown.
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:21.000
Louis Massiah: So like at age 21, they moved to—
Toni Cade Bambara: Of age. Right, yeah. Going to the city.
00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:31.000
Louis Massiah: Good old Harlem Renaissance. And they talk about drinking gin. Louis Thompson Patterson was saying, was despera— y'know, drinking gin was a big deal. Y'know.
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:46.000
Pearl Bowser: But y'know, the, the press plays an interesting role in this. When we look at the newspapers from um, African American newspapers, um, y'know the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier and others.
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:48.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm [[agreement]].
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Pearl Bowser: How they translated stories from one— I mean they reported stuff that was happening in, y'know, almost every city where there was a black population.
00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Louis Massiah: Right.
00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:13.000
Pearl Bowser: And it was, it was like feeding, um, people who were not there, who were not in the know, so that they could become a part of the know, or could search and become, y'know seekers after, after that.
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:28.000
Pearl Bowser: And I mean, it's interesting. You relate it to freedom, in a sense. I mean that freedom to choose, and that freedom to choose also translated in terms of people uprooting themselves
00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:32.000
Toni Cade Bambara: [[cross talk]] Freedom to move.
Pearl Bowser: and looking from one place to another to another.
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:49.000
Pearl Bowser: But it also, um, in terms of the, um, it was a freedom to be whoever or whatever I want to be. And there were all these kind of role models that were projected in the black press.
00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:51.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Yes.
00:37:51.000 --> 00:38:10.000
Pearl Bowser: They promoted the idea of developing black businesses. I mean, there's a whole series of issues of Chicago Defender that talk very deliberately every single week about what new business is developing in Harlem, right? And the fact that the negro, um, national—
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:13.000
Louis Massiah: Black Swan Records and all, right?
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:29.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah, yeah. I mean all of those things were, were— they were news items. They weren't just profiteers, entrepreneurs making money off the community, they were newsworthy items that were usable items for, y'know, for the community, and for people outside of the community.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:33.000
Louis Massiah: I'm sorry. I'm really, I'm going off.
00:38:33.000 --> 00:38:35.000
Toni Cade Bambara: It's alright.
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:49.000
Louis Massiah: But, y'know I really— this is not really something, so much for the article, but y'know, I do have problems with Micheaux that I don't think we really talked about. In reality, it does seem to me that, um,
00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:52.000
[[silence]]
00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Louis Massiah: the African, fully African people in his films—and again I don't claim, I mean I've maybe seen five Micheaux films—are not, well they're certainly not the center of the love triangles, or the love thing. And they're not fully, they're not as human, they're not as centered, and that's really kind of strange.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:24.000
Pearl Bowser: It's very, it's very troublesome.
00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:41.000
Louis Massiah: It's very troublesome, and it's almost as if the real people are the mulattos, whereas in the— not entirely! But I mean, but there is a, and there's also a good, bad thing that sort of goes with color, in the Micheaux films.
00:39:41.000 --> 00:40:00.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I think in the Micheaux films there's less of a good, bad color than in the other films of that day. I'm thinking particularly the [[guilty player?]] films. But, certainly in these two films, the darkest character is E. G. Tatum, and in both films he's, um,
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Louis Massiah: [[cross talk]] A traitor.
Pearl Bowser: [[cross talk]] He's the comic relief. He's the comic relief.
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:21.000
Toni Cade Bambara: He's the comic relief. He's comic relief in "Symbol of the Unconquered." He's also comic relief in a, in a painful kind of way in, um, "Within Our Gates" since he's the one that sort of sounds the alarm that mobilized the lynch mob, although he gets his comeuppance.
00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:25.000
Louis Massiah: And the other thing that's like, that's uneroticized— I'm sorry.
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:27.000
Pearl Bowser: Go ahead.
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:31.000
Louis Massiah: But, the other thing's uncriticized, and I'm, now I'm going to really personalize and this is probably not for attribution whatsoever, but—
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:33.000
Pearl Bowser: No, leave it on.
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:45.000
Louis Massiah: Alright. The other thing is um, the blackophilia is um, is not critic— there's not, there's no critique of it. It's, it's—
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:47.000
Pearl Bowser: No critique of the what?
00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:01.000
Louis Massiah: Of the love of light. It sort of like that's the norm, and that's right. Um, there's no sense that uh— there's pain, but it's right, y'know?
00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:21.000
Toni Cade Bambara: No. In, in "Body in Soul" there's a cri— no, is there a critique? What about, what happens in "Body and Soul" after that scene where the preacher, who is one of the darkest people in the film, calls Lawrence Chenault yellow dog?
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Pearl Bowser: Yellow niger.
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:24.000
Toni Cade Bambara: You yellow niger? You yellow niger.
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Louis Massiah: What happened?
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:42.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Is there? Now that's, um, a kind of reversal of, um, the good, bad value that you get in the other films of the day. Um, do we get anymore—
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:50.000
Pearl Bowser: But the, um, to the, where the color question comes, um,
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Where he could take—
00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:06.000
questionable, is, in "Body and Soul," the comic relief is this, who the guy who's the same complexion as [[Rosy?]]. And so, I mean, his color is not—
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:08.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Operating. [[cross talk]] As much.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:14.000
Operating, right? And you can find instances in Micheaux's films where the color is not important.
00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:20.000
Louis Massiah: Well, I mean yeah, obviously, y'know Chenault in this one is a villain.
Pearl Bowser: [[cross talk]] It's not operating.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:43:00.000
Pearl Bowser: Right, and um, in terms of the romantic lead, I think we're, there's a certain amount of validity to what you're saying, is that within the community at large, this question of color was very operative. There was even, in the earlier period before the movies, y'know talking about 1890s when there was talk of what the race would look like, a hundred years from now.
00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:20.000
Pearl Bowser: And when, when there was that aspiration, that feeling that freedom would allow us to become completely ameliorated within the larger society. Meaning, not only would we sort of culturally become ameliorated with— not ameliorated.
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Assimilated?
Louis Massiah: Assimilated.
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:32.000
Pearl Bowser: Assimilated in society, but we would even begin to look less like the African, and more like the assimilated society. And there are, there are articles written about that.
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:35.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Oh sure, sure. There's a absolute obsession.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:44:02.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah, there was, I mean that notion was afoot. So, I guess I mentioned that to say that, for me that is another reality operative in Micheaux's films. I mean, not something that I would critique him personally for, but I would look to the larger society and say, "well yeah, I mean, what is Micheaux doing with this?"
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:30.000
Pearl Bowser: I mean, deliberately, in that scene from "God's Step Children" for instance, where Naomi says, "Oh, I don't want to marry anybody who looks like that!" Y'know, I mean, "that funny looking man!" Or they have that blackface in, um, I think it's "The Girl from Chicago," one scene where [[Wood?]] is frightened by this face in the window, and it's a dark skinned man.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:39.000
Pearl Bowser: Y'know there are a couple of ways to read that. If you think, in terms of what's going on in the society outside of the— I mean in the real world, outside of the—
00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Within the black community.
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah, within the black community. Um, there's a certain level of truism to those objects and one wonders if Micheaux is—maybe I'm being to boosterism about Micheaux, but I'll say it anyway.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:15.000
Pearl Bowser: I wonder if he's not pointing up something which is there, as he sees it, in the African American experience that needs to be corrected or directed.
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:17.000
Louis Massiah: Was Micheaux married?
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:18.000
Pearl Bowser: Yes.
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Louis Massiah: What did his wife look like?
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:34.000
Pearl Bowser: Um, his wife is the woman in "God's Step Children." She's the mother, in "God's Step Children." She was, uh, beautiful woman. She wasn't, um, fair, [[background noise]] too fair, but she—
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:36.000
Louis Massiah: She wasn't—?
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.000
Pearl Bowser: She wasn't fair.
Louis Massiah: [[cross talk]] Right.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:41.000
[[silence]]
00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:44.000
Pearl Bowser: She was a very striking woman.
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:46.000
Louis Massiah: Totally unrelated—
Toni Cade Bambara: [[cross talk]] Something on fair?
00:45:46.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Louis Massiah: No, uh, my niece— my sister's a judge. My niece was visiting with me when Lillian [[Jimenez?]] had come by to visit, and Julia was saying to Lillian, "Oh, what does your mother do?" And Julia said, "Well, my mother's a judge," and Lillian said, "Oh, is she fair?" And she said, "No, she's—
00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Toni Cade Bambara: [[cross talk]] Brown?
Louis Massiah: just like [[Lily?]]!"
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:17.000
[[laughter]]
00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:27.000
Louis Massiah: And I'm just thinking, so Julia has that word already, y'know? That's too bad. But anyway, yeah.
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:27.040
Pearl Bowser: Okay.
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:42.000
Pearl Bowser: You still think uh, that uh, um, something we haven't critiqued, or need to critique.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Toni Cade Bambara: I don't think that we have enough of Micheaux to critique--
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:53.000
Louis Massiah: Yeah, I, you know, what I wanna, what I wanna go, I want to borrow all your cassettes, go to the museum of modern art. [[ladies laugh]] I wanna come back and do it again. [[ladies laugh]]
00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:56.000
Pearl Bowser: Look at them all.
Louis Massiah: Having seen... [inaudible]
00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:03.000
Toni Cade Bambara: What is characteristic is, he never strikes the same note about color.
00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:06.000
He seems to be exploring something,
Louis Massiah: Mm-hmm.
00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:09.000
Toni Cade Bambara: in the, in the, uhm, snatches I've seen.
00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:12.000
Toni Cade Bambara: And when I compare that to "Scar of Shame,"--
00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:16.000
Toni Cade Bambara: Eleven P.M. [[cross talk]]
Toni Cade Bambara: The "Scar of Shame" type--
Pearl Bowser: Ah, "Eleven P.M."
00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Toni Cade Bambara: [[side conversation]] Yeah, I don't really mean "Eleven P.M."
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:20.000
Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I do.
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:22.000
Toni Cade Bambara: But I'm particularly thinking of "The Scar of Shame"
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:28.000
and those films like that; there's about-- They all melt into my head.
00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:40.896
Toni Cade Bambara: There's always the damsel on the chaise lounge and somebody, the maid, the darker woman, not darker, but usually her hair is a little nappier out in the yard doing the [[cut off]]
