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Transcription: [00:30:32]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Uh, the impulse rather, I think, is to illuminate what is happening in actuality and to hook it.
[00:30:57]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
We will, in "Within Our Gates", we will see when the doctor hero looks at the newspapers.
[00:31:20]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
In, in "Symbol of the Unconquered," what is it? Umm.
[00:31:37]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
What is it in the "Symbol of the Unconquered"? Girl?
[00:31:42]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Getting back to, to the land. Is that--
[00:31:48]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
No there's some other actual, actual --
[00:31:50]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Oh! The, the prospector? Was it the guy-- Mason? Mason who found uh, that discovered oil.

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
the homeless vet-- The prospector.- They found uh, they discovered oil.

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Mmm.
[00:31:58]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
And I think it only becomes questionable when we're looking at some of the standards.
[00:32:11]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That novel.

{SPEAKER name="Louis Messiah"}
Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:39]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
But in film and cinema, it's an experience in a group situation, unlike reading a novel.
[00:32:47]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Well, it's also like seeing those -- who has those Jesus pictures?

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"} {SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[in unison] Professor Williams!

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Yeah!
[00:32:53]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
I mean like seeing Jesus in some ways in a film is reality.
[00:32:58]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Yes.

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
It's a similar kind of thing

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Yes.
[00:33:00]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right.

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
It's called cultural specific.

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That abysmal-- Culture specific is familiar. That's-- That's the word I was looking at.

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Right.
[00:33:12]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
the brother who was the consultant to Vidor, and there were these scenes of this static religion,
[00:33:28]

{SPEAKER name="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,

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Ah-ha.
[00:33:36]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
and people who was telling me this, I guess my roommother's [[??]],
[00:33:42]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
the people, folks, went to see the film time and time and time again
[00:33:45]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
just for those scenes because that was validation.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
They were real.
[00:33:50]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
They were real.

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
They were real. They were real.
[00:33:53]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
So they validate the experience. So they would reflect the-- mostly validate the experience.
[00:33:58]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Yeah. What was that, 1927, I guess? 29.
[00:34:05]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
29. Hallelujah 1929.
[00:34:08]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
But, you know I guess, I am going away from the aesthetics and content for just a second.
[00:34:15]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
But working within this United States society as an African American and working specifically in the African-American community,
[00:34:42]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
and continuing, you know, for decades, you know, that to me is a--
[00:34:50]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
--is a very usable model.

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
--very useful model!
[00:34:53]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
and certainly, it's really in that role that I sorta see him.
[00:35:00]

{SPEAKER name="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]]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Persistence.
[00:35:16]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
very characteristic of Black Art practice, to not be concerned about immortality
[00:35:41]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
but to comment on-- to be timely, to be of use and of service, immediately to the community,
[00:35:47]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
and Micheaux use of incidents; his use frequently in films,
[00:35:54]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
that that's the particular pharmacy because maybe that pharmacist helped bankroll this film
[00:36:10]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
and maybe that's where his last film was seen.
[00:36:16]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Who was-- I am trying to think of who--
[00:36:35]

{SPEAKER name="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]]
[
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
What-- What-- What--
[00:36:41]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
and of course, if your in that choir, how can you not go see the film?
[00:36:54]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
There is another operative there that's very interesting about Micheaux's work
[00:37:04]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
They could then return to see the finished film, which would indeed play in town,
[00:37:31]

{SPEAKER nae="Pearl Bowser"}
and thus, not only was the club identified, but one could see your next door neighbor

[[crosstalk]]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Ah, ha. Oneself.
[[Laughing]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
or oneself in the movies.
[00:37:38]

{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
And you could tell your next door neighbor down the street that--

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Like you were part of a whole glamorous facade.
[00:37:45]


{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
But there is something that is always kind of a begging question in my mind about Micheaux's work
[00:37:53]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and that is that not just the impulse for racial uplift, but his
seeming need to correct,
[00:38:03]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
to be the moralist on one level, but always trying to redirect and reconstruct;
[00:38:13]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
not just the image on film, but the image that was operative within the community,
[00:38:24]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and trying to correct those images.
[00:38:27]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
In one of his novels, he makes a statement about one of his greatest goals
[00:38:34]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
is to prove to a certain group of my acquaintances, meaning race people; [[??]] people;
[00:38:43]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
that a man can be anybody. He can be anything, right?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He only needs to throw himself into, and so achieve, so that--
[00:38:53]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And that's the kind of theme that seems to pervade many of Micheaux's films;
[00:39:00]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
that will to succeed; the need to succeed; the role model.
[00:39:07]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Micheaux himself is always, Micheaux himself is always a part of that story.
[00:39:13]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
I mean, he's the prospector, he's the--

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
The homesteader. Uh, huh.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
he's the homesteader, he's the book salesman, he's the producer in Swing.
[00:39:22]

{SPEAKER name="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]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Not Hollywood, maybe the typical entertainment mode.
[00:39:43]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He still pushes in that corrective and directive elements.

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
--mode--
--gets his--
[00:39:52]

Transcription Notes:
Not done correctly. Don't put spaces between the speaker, then the dialogue, then the timestamp. I will fix. Please watch INSTRUCTIONS. Also, wrong speaker names for some of the phrases. Toni has the deeper woman's voice. Pearl's is higher.