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00:13:54
00:34:44
00:13:54
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Transcription: [00:13:54]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
We also have to remember that so much of Oscar Michaeux's work has only just begun to surface
[00:14:09]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and a very important part of his work during the Silent Era when, say the technology was not an impediment
[00:14:20]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
to his telling a story and making a film and getting his message across.
[00:14:27]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The fact that those films are only just beginning to surface,
[00:14:37]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
I think is forcing us to look at Michaeux again differently,
[00:14:44]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and perhaps to see his work in a clearer light,
[00:14:57]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and to critique the films, and not simply to dismiss them because of low production values or whatever.
[00:15:01]
{SPEAKER name="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?
[00:15:09]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
I think so. I think not only is it more complex handling of a color question,
[00:15:18]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
but the catch is themselves, the black characters on the screen;
[00:15:25]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
the African American experience on the screen is explored on many different levels, even within one film within our [[gates?]].
[00:15:35]
{SPEAKER name="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,
[00:15:45]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
but still a certain relevancy for it today. We're forced to look at his films and his work differently
[00:15:55]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
because those, I mean, looking at it within our gates today against the background,
[00:16:04]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
the backstories of what was happening in the press at the time; how Michaeux was affected by it, could not have,
[00:16:12]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
but otherwise, could not have otherwise been affected by what was going on around him, with lynching, and rioting;
[00:16:19]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and just the horror the lynching-- the details that were prevalent in the press.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
[[Birth of the nation?]] [[inaudible]] [[Press?]]
[00:16:25]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It wasn't simply a word that we associate today; "Lynching," or "Lynching B." Right?
[[horns honking]]
[00:16:33]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That doesn't conjure up any horrible pictures, [[horns honking]] but when you read the headlines of the newspapers,
[00:16:40]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
in 1919, even before that, up to 1921;
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Um, uh. [[inaudible]] Um, uh.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and you come face to face with the [[crashing sound]]
[00:16:51]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
brutality mentioned, and the description, details of what that act was;
[00:16:59]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
not just mutilations and burnings and whatnot, and had not regard or respect for whether it was a child or a woman,
[00:17:11]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and it wasn't only about mentioning a man because he had the protecting of white womanhood.
[00:17:20]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
When you see all of that in the background of these films, they take on a different meaning.
[00:17:30]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
You almost want to think of them as protest films
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Yeah.
[00:17:36]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And heightening the consciousness of the people of that day as they are [[??]] capable of heightening the consciousness.
[00:17:49]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Those two particular films, "Within Our Gates," and "Symbol of the Unconquered."
[[cross talk]]
{Unknown speaker}
Symbol--
[00:17:57]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
But what always amazes me is what we are missing; he made like twenty-five films, silent films;
[00:18:07]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
what we're missing in all those other titles that have yet to surface.
[00:18:19]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And uh-- Well.
[00:18:21]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Do you believe there is an African-American aesthetic, Pearl?
[00:18:25]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
I think there is something inherently--
{SILENCE}
I think there is something embodied in the world,
[00:18:36]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
in a range of time; that the artist is affected by the icons of that generation,
[00:18:46]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}r
whether it be music, or literature, another filmmaker, or whatever;
[00:18:53]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
that-- that [[inaudible]] informs his work.
[00:18:56]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And when the artist is being - I'll use your words - "focused on the particularities of the culture,"
[00:19:07]
{SPEAKER name="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,
[00:19:18]
{SPEAKER name="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;
[00:19:35]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
a commonality in experiences; of responses and reactions to the style of its music; literature. And I think--
[00:19:51]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Right, but--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
[[inaudible]]
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
I kinda-- I kinda read what you two are saying in a slightly different way, which might sound a little "Clyde Taylorist,"
[00:20:04]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
in that I don't know if the body of work in film is strong-- is, is, is quantity-- is deep enough.
[00:20:17]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
When you compare how-- Music is a continual, you know, day and night activity, in terms of the African-American community.
[00:20:25]
{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,
[00:20:36]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
millions, right now. [[loud cracking noise]] But films; how many are being made right now, at this moment? And, uh--
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
--or in the 40s.
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
--or in the 40's?
[00:20:47]
{SPEAKER name="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.
[00:20:58]
{SPEAKER name="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,
[00:21:07]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
in other narrative structures like music, like literature; especially music. And-- Yeah.
[00:21:22]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
But I think that's where we're going to find that African-American aesthetic; that broader view of art.
[00:21:32]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
But if-- if-- if you think, um, of the arts, and you might be stretching it to think of-- Well, no.
[00:21:41]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The film is an art form, too. Whether the filmmaker, the practitioner, achieves a level of art, is something else.
[00:21:50]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
But there are certain undeniable-- ah, yeah.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Storytelling.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
certain undeniable elements in there that one can equate.
[00:21:58]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
{SILENCE}
The films do not happen in isolation of that total cultural experience.
[00:22:08]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Even if the experience is denying,
[00:22:14]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
and the preferred expression comes from the majority culture,
[00:22:22]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
there ought to be some elements that one can point to that is cultural specific, or is identifiably--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Um. Oh, yes. I think--
[00:22:36]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
I think there are. I think think there are. We-- We hit on some earlier.
[00:22:41]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
But I think the difficulty I'm feeling is trying to connect Micheaux
[00:22:50]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
in very, very tangible ways, beyond situational ways, to Charles Burnett.
[00:23:01]
{SPEAKER name="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
[00:23:10]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
the body of Burnett's work, and the body of Micheaux's work, or Julie Dash's work, in there, as well.
[00:23:17]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
These are the things that make-- are in common.
[00:23:22]
{SPEAKER name="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]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Than the discovering the discernible features.
[00:23:50]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
We didn't hear what your definition of the aesthetic--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
O, I was saying I was some-- that I was having trouble with the test
[00:24:02]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
for an aesthetic being discernible features in Micheaux, their reappearance or singing echo
[00:24:12]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
in four or five films, or the work of two or three filmmakers present.
[00:24:20]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
I think, one, there has to be continuum; a large body of work over time.
[00:24:29]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
And we discover culturally specific responses to social specifics,
[00:24:39]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Um, in the literature, and there are certainly still lots of arguments
[00:25:00]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
as to how the African-American tradition and narrative prose is being defined,
[00:25:04]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
particularly as we discover and reclaim more women writers; particularly [[inaudible]] writers
[00:25:14]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
But if we see characters; there are certain obligatory characters, let's say,
[00:25:31]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
reappearing characters in the "freedom literature", or what we have been told to call the "slave narratives."
[00:25:41]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
And we see them again, in say, Ellison. That is not enough to argue aesthetic,
[00:25:52]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
we are experiencing, also, the folk-- the fable-- the folk fable tradition and cycle,
[00:26:11]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
We can also push those characters against another pantheon out of your book like [[Oija??]], Oakland, Ocean.
[00:27:20]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
In other words, it's not enough to--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
--single out--
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
--to single out five features in the body of one filmmaker,
[00:27:45]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
and they reappear in the bodies of two or three other filmmakers, in another period.
[[Unknown speaker]]
Hey.
[00:28:02]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
We need a much bigger pool.
[00:28:05]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
with an agenda, with a political agenda, if we will, or a political aesthetic agenda.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
And he was successful at it. You know what I mean.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
And he was successful. Yes. It got it clear; got it set. Yes.
[00:28:38]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Anyway, DuBois' "After Birth of a Nation," basically said,
[00:28:44]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
"Hey, we can--" When the First Amendment came out, nobody had even conceived the film,
[00:28:52]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
in terms of what Dixon and Griffith were saying in "Birth of a Nation.
[00:29:07]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
and we can address, you know, the slander.
[00:29:23]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
So, he's successful; he's not a propagandist, but he's successful at politicizing.
[00:29:34]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Why not a propagandist?
[00:29:36]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
I mean, I don't know if he would see himself as a propagandist. But I-- Well--
[00:29:42]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It was race propaganda; I mean, they used the term.
[00:29:44]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Really. Huh.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah, --the term.
[00:29:47]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The dialogue between Lincoln Pictures - George B. Johnson and Oscar Micheaux -
[00:29:54]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
was that you can not succeed using race propaganda, using film for race propaganda.
[00:30:07]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It should be these little achievement-- stories of racial uplift,
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
--stories.
[00:30:14]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
but not to deal with the contentious questions and issues that are--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
and issues--
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah.
[00:30:20]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That then becomes propaganda.
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Right.
[00:30:23]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
So he is not an overt propagandist,
[00:30:27]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
but he successful at propaganda, basically, changing perceptions and-- [[inaudible]]
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara and Pearl Bowser"}
Counter--
Counter dealing. Yeah.
{SILENCE}
[[noise in background]]
[00:30:40]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
So in the final analyze, what is important in the show for filmmakers today?
[00:30:50]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Gee, I thought-- [[laugh]] I thought that was an awfully good answer to that question.
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It's not--
[00:30:59]
{SPEAKER name="Tony Cade Bambara"}
I think it's-- It think it is now it is more call response; call and response. [[Honk]]
[00:31:05]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
[[loud noise on stage]] what constitutes a courageous, if you will, relationship to developing technology.
[00:31:47]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
He lays out the call, and I think film students, or students of film, today,
[00:31:56]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
who are paying attention to Micheaux, make a [[loud noise]] response then. He's a model.
[00:32:07]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And you think his work needs to be studied in the context of--
[00:32:10]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Oh, my God. Yes!
[00:32:12]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
a more serious
{SILENCE}
and analytical--
[00:32:15]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
Absolutely.
[00:32:17]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Certainly,looking at some of the framing tonight--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
In the "Symbol of the Unconquered".
[00:32:22]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Right. In the "Symbol of the Unconquered"; it is appealing. It is, a--
[00:32:31]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Again, I can't [[smacking noise]] put it in any specific African-American context, you know.
[00:32:39]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
So, I mean, that-- that's like looking at any artist that you admire. That's good, and Micheaux--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
He fulfills his contract--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Right.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
to the spectator.
[00:33:05]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
I should say-- I should correct myself. DuBois initially felt that uh, uh--
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[laughter]] --we lacked the-- [[noise]]
[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Yeah, we lacked technology
[00:33:14]
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
and the ability to deal with the slander of film,
[00:33:17]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
[[cuts off]]
[[noises on stage]]
[00:33:47]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
So, [[cuts off]] relationships in this period of the 20s.
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Yeah, yeah.
[[noises are being made all around them.]]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It occurs to me as I'm reading Toni Morrison's "Jazz,"-- oh--
[00:33:59]
{SPEAKER name="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?
{SPEAKER name="Louis Massiah"}
Yeah.
[00:34:11]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"]
[[loud noises around them during this part of the conversation all the time]]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="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]
{SPEAKER name="Toni Cade Bambara"}
The plantation folk didn't give a damn about who they mated people with. So it was, "Oh, mame."
[00:34:45]
Transcription Notes:
FINISH PUTTING IN SPEAKERS AND TIME STAMPS. TIME STAMPS GO UNDER THE DIALOG, AS SEEN IN THE Instruction VIDEO.
