Migrating to the movies : cinema and Black urban modernity / / Jacqueline Najuma Stewart

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910822546603321
• Autore: Stewart Jacqueline Najuma <1970->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2005
• ISBN: 1-59734-750-7; 1-282-76265-6; 9786612762659; 0-520-93640-X; 1-4175-8514-5
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (369 p.)
• Collana: The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies
• Disciplina: 791.43/652996073
• Soggetti: African Americans in the motion picture industry; African Americans in motion pictures; Motion picture audiences - United States; African Americans - Migrations - History - 20th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Chicago, 1999.; "The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies"--P. [ii].
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-325) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: A Nigger in the Woodpile, or Black (In)Visibility in Film History -- 1. "To Misrepresent a Helpless Race": The Black Image Problem -- 2. Mixed Colors: Riddles of Blackness in Preclassical Cinema -- 3. "Negroes Laughing at Themselves"? Black Spectatorship and the Performance of Urban Modernity -- 4. "Some Thing to See Up Here All the Time": Moviegoing and Black Urban Leisure in Chicago -- 5. Along the "Stroll": Chicago's Black Belt Movie Theaters -- 6. Reckless Rovers versus Ambitious Negroes: Migration, Patriotism, and the Politics of Genre in Early African American Filmmaking -- 7. "We Were Never Immigrants": Oscar Micheaux and the Reconstruction of Black American Identity -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: The rise of cinema as the predominant American entertainment around ; the turn of the last century coincided with the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to the urban "land of hope" in the North. This richly illustrated book, discussing many early films and illuminating black urban life in this period, is the first detailed look at the numerous early relationships between African Americans and cinema. It investigates African American migrations onto the screen, into the audience, and behind the camera, showing that African American urban populations and cinema shaped each other in powerful ways. Focusing on Black film culture in Chicago during the silent era, Migrating to the Movies begins with the earliest cinematic representations of African Americans and concludes with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and other early "race films" made for Black audiences, discussing some of the extraordinary ways in which African Americans staked their claim in cinema's development as an art and a cultural institution.