Silent
Race Film
Posters
From its beginnings in the early 20th century United States, the film industry sought to create narratives that reflected the society in which it lived. As was the case in real life, these narratives also included reflections of a segregated society and contemporary media steeped in racist and pejorative stereotypes. In instances when black characters were onscreen, their roles tended toward demeaning representations of African-Americans. Black audiences looking to see themselves reflected onscreen had nowhere to go.
With those same black audiences hungry for quality content, there existed a market that white filmmakers and mainstream Hollywood failed to acknowledge. Black filmmakers stepped in to fill the gap and Race Film in the United States was born. Beginning with (arguably) the Foster
Photoplay Company in 1913 and moving forward to dozens of production companies producing content by the end of the 1920’s, Silent Race Film evolved as a genre. Based on the simple idea of black film for black audiences, black filmmakers and artists struggled to depict African-American life with respect, dignity and sensitivity. The economic and artistic successes of the first wave of silent race film led to the eventual establishment of race film units on the major studio lots of Hollywood by the 1930’s.
Extrapolating forward along a timeline of African-American cinema, we can locate the end of the studio era in Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandrige, move forward to New Hollywood and Richard Roundtree in Gordon Park’s Shaft (1971); forward again to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) and eventually all the way up to Brian Jenkin’s Moonlight (2016), arguably one of the greatest race films ever made and winner of the 2016 Academy Award.
At the heart of these achievements, or rather at their foundation, is the work of the first race filmmakers of the silent era, and their mission to create compelling, compassionate and sensitive narratives that truthfully reflected the complexities of black life.