Within Our Gates
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"One of the earliest surviving works of African-American filmmaking, Oscar Micheaux’s remarkable drama offers a vivid tapestry of the intricacies of the Black experience. A pioneering independent director, Micheaux’s mesmerizing vision acts as a gut-punching indictment of systemic racism in America."
— MUBI’s take
"Oscar Micheaux wrote, produced and directed this groundbreaking motion picture considered one of the first of a genre that would become known as “race films.” Many critics have seen “Within Our Gates” as Micheaux's response to D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” in which African Americans were depicted as generally negative stereotypes, as they were in almost all films of the day. Despite Micheaux’s limited budget and limited production values, it still effectively confronted racism head on with its story of a teacher (Evelyn Preer) determined to start a school for poor black children. Contemporary viewers may find it difficult to defend Micheaux’s balancing act between authenticity and acceptability to white audiences, but that’s what he believed was necessary simply to get the film made."
— The Library of Congress
Within Our Gates
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1992.
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Within Our Gates is a 1920 American silent film by the director Oscar Micheaux that portrays the contemporary racial situation in the United States during the early twentieth century, the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration of blacks to cities of the North and Midwest, and the emergence of the "New Negro". It was part of a genre called race films.
The plot features an African-American woman who goes North in an effort to raise money for a rural school in the Deep South for poor black children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family's past and her own mixed-race, European ancestry. The film portrays racial violence under white supremacy, and the lynching of black people. Produced, written and directed by Micheaux, it is the oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.
Why It Rocks
- It's one of the first of a genre that would become known as "race films" -- a film genre produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, featuring black casts, which was groundbreaking for its time considering black actors couldn't get too much work.
- Due to the above pointer, the film's often seen as Micheaux's response to The Birth of a Nation from 5 years prior as unlike the aforementioned film and most films of the day, where African-Americans would portrayed as negative stereotypes, the black lead is actually portrayed in a decent, non-offensive light in this film in a way that still manages to resonate with a handful of audiences today.
- Aside from being the earliest surviving film with an African-American director, there's boldly bifurcated story, complexly told using flashbacks, cutaways, memories, a North/South geographic divide, and dreamed visions of nightmarish reality. The film tells in its first half a melodrama of romance and jealousy, and in its second half, revealed in a long flashback, it narrates its heroine’s backstory involving family lynching (first time it was seen from a black's perspective in film) and incineration, rape, and secret miscegenation. So... that's another way the film made history.
- Despite having several dramatized caricatures of different types (progressive Southern black teachers, a criminal lech, a hypocritical preacher, a racist dowager, a black policeman, an exploitative landowner) in this case, it makes the film’s melodramatic affect united with its social import, critique, and message. The characters also have a self-awareness that was highly unusual for the time period, the corrupt preacher for example realizes "hell is [his] destiny". Suggesting the blacks faced problems unrelated to racism or oppression from whites was especially noteworthy.
- Despite the film's limited budget and limited production values, it still effectively confronted racism head on with its compelling story of a teacher determined to start a school for poor black children and her struggles. It's a powerful reminder of how far Americans have come as a nation, and what film-making from different voices can accomplish.
- While modern day viewers might find it difficult to defend the director's balancing act between authenticity and acceptability to white audiences, it's what he believed was necessary simply to get the film made.
- Well-done and decent quality acting that's very expressive and displays a lot of realism.
- Decent cinematography and production despite the low-budget as mentioned above. There's a sequence with Sylvia crossing a Boston street through heavy traffic, the camera providing dynamic angles while quick cutting establishes a jazzy tempo.
Bad Qualities
- On an aesthetic level, the film can seem awkward and even unformed. Although, considering Micheaux only had a $5000 - $15000 budget, expensive production values couldn't be done for the film.
- The acting often seems unrefined or under-rehearsed, but this may not be the actors' -- or even the director's -- fault.
- The plotting can be chaotic and incomprehensible at times. "Imperfect cinema" for shots that don't match, gaps in temporal or spatial logic, storylines that careen into unexpected tangents, etc. Although it should be noted, the version we have access to is actually the surviving footage from Spain with only a few surviving intertitles. Some of the film's incoherence is due to missing intertitles or generally poor shape of the materials, along with the remaining footage being cut, rearranged and duplicated. A restored version was later able to translate the recreate the intertitles.
Trivia
- As mentioned above, Within Our Gates is the earliest surviving film with a African-American director. (In this case, Oscar Micheaux)