About the List...
Look around, and you’ll see how African Americans have emerged as the big screen’s most reliable stars. Will Smith is the one demonstrable megastar. Morgan Freeman’s quiet dignity gets him designated as the face of God and the soul of humanity. And the achievements of blacks are regularly honored by Hollywood. In the past seven years, blacks have won Academy Awards in every acting category. Halle Berry took Best Actress for Monster’s Ball, Freeman Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby, Jennifer Hudson Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls. In Best Actor, three of the last six Oscars have gone to African Americans: Denzel Washington for Training Day, Jamie Foxx for Ray and Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland. In these glamorous categories, blacks have achieved a kind of parity. Hmmm, that didn’t take long — only 100 years.
To celebrate Black History Month, we’ve chosen 25 movies to honor the artistry, appeal and determination of African Americans on and behind the screen. The films span nine decades, and reveal a legacy that was tragic before it was triumphant. At first, blacks were invisible; when they were allowed to be seen, it was mostly as derisive comic relief. The 1950s ushered in the age of the noble Negro, in the imposing person of Sidney Poitier — the Jackie Robinson of movies. Only when Hollywood realized that a sizable black audience would pay to see films more reflective of their lives, whether funny, poignant or violent, were they given control of the means of production. Sometimes. The fact remains that of the 25 films here, chosen to cover the widest range of black films, fewer than half were directed by blacks.
We need to examine the history of blacks in film to appreciate their deep roots. Poitier, Smith and Denzel Washington, all radiating a manly cine-magnetism, are the sons of Paul Robeson, who was the first great black movie star — or would have been, if Hollywood and America hadn’t been steeped in racism. Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, the top comedy stars of the 80s, have a strange, subversive ancestor in Stepin Fetchit, America’s first black millionaire actor. Prime African-American actresses of the 20s and 30s like Nina Mae McKinney, Fredi Washington and Hattie McDaniel waged valiant battles in a hostile industry, first to get movie roles, then to bring fiery life to them. Spike Lee’s stated aim as a director is to “uplift the race” — a motto used 60 years earlier by Oscar Micheaux, whose will to make socially pertinent movies for black audiences was as steely as the ambitions of his leading characters.
As Harriet Tubman led to Oprah Winfrey, and Martin Luther King. Jr., to Barack Obama, so the stars of early black cinema are the mothers and fathers of the stars who entertain and edify us. To study the work of Robeson, McKinney, McDaniel and their kin is to recognize the hardships they endured, the heroism they displayed, in making their impossible dream today’s movie reality.
Body and Soul
In the silent era, black actors were hardly allowed on screen, even as maids or oafish comic relief. Hollywood would have loved a handsome, strapping presence like Paul Robeson, if only the industry hadn’t been blinded by racism. So the Rutgers football star and Columbia-educated lawyer made his film debut under the aegis of Oscar Micheaux, a go-it-alone entrepreneur who made his socially potent, artistically amateurish pictures on the super-cheap. In Body and Soul, Robeson plays two characters: the saintly Sylvester Jenkins and his venal brother, the “Reverend” Isaiah, an ex-con who wows the church ladies with his oratory, then sullies their virgin daughters and makes off with the victims’ life savings — in a Bible. It’s Isaiah who gets the screen time, which allows Robeson to radiate his unique movie appeal.
In a sensible society, the movie men out West would have seen the raw power of Robeson’s performance and signed him up. He did get a few supporting roles in Hollywood, notably in the 1936 Show Boat, singing “Old Man River” and playing opposite Hattie McDaniel. But his unapologetic charisma and machismo — call it charismo — had no place in the official American movie industry. Like Josephine Baker, the sinuous black dancer who emigrated to Paris and had several movies built around her personality, Robeson had to go to Britain to find leading roles. In these medium-budget dramas, he was always billed above the white stars; and in one of these films, 1937′s Jericho, he surely became the first movie man of color to call a white man “boy.” Back home, movie people pretended Robeson didn’t exist. That was a great loss, for him and for the strong characters he might have been able to embody. Not for the last time, we whisper: If only….
Hollywood on Race
- About the List...
- Body and Soul
- Hallelujah!
- Judge Priest
- Imitation of Life
- God's Step Children
- The Duke Is Tops
- Gone With the Wind
- The Blood of Jesus
- The Jackie Robinson Story
- Native Son
- Carmen Jones
- The Defiant Ones
- In the Heat of the Night
- Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song
- Lady Sings the Blues
- Cooley High
- Killer of Sheep
- Richard Pryor Live in Concert
- A Soldier's Story
- Do the Right Thing
- Boyz N the Hood
- Eve's Bayou
- Bamboozled
- Madea's Family Reunion
- I Am Legend
