Uplift Cinema – Film and Reception

“A Vicious and Hurtful Play” – Allyson Nadia Field, Uplift Cinema

This chapter is about the reception and response to the 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation. I have had the experience, though I would not call it the pleasure, of studying the literature that inspired this film (in an undergraduate class by the name “Race and Realism,” referring to the two major themes of the time period). Books like The Clansman and A Fool’s Errand are haunting in their portrayals of race, and I remember having to turn off the movie. That said, it is the reason I chose this particular chapter.

Though the initial reactions outlined by the chapter demonstrate disagreement on how to handle its chilling popularity and message, ranging from censorship and editing, to the addition of fact-slides before and after the film to create a narrative of “progress”, or otherwise, to make new films entirely. The first two options were tried with mixed success. Censorship didn’t help make things better in Boston or Chicago – the film was too prevalently awful to be “fixed” and the film too long to be overshadowed. The action was also regarded as a violation of freedom of speech. Furthermore, protests of theaters showing the film were sometimes seen as advertisement, in that they attracted attention (the phrase ‘any publicity is good publicity’ comes to mind). The addition of the narrative – including black authors and activists – was presumably well-meaning, but was met with mixed reception as well.

In some ways, Birth of a Nation catalyzed the production of uplift cinema, with the intention that to oppose moving images, equally or more compelling films needed to be made. The New Era and Making Negro Lives Count were the start of this, but were described as nauseating – like a spoon of sugar to follow/cover a bad taste. Cephas Returns appears to have managed the concept better, emphasizing community and improvement as a step into the future.

“Monuments of Progress” – Cara Caddoo, Envisioning Freedom

As films developed, and were shown more frequently (with increasing complexity of content and length), and theaters and churches were “the center of black social and cultural life in the city” (99), with themes of religion and uplift at the forefront. As churches struggled with expenses, segregated theaters increased in popularity for the community, though this brought with it a notion of immorality and perceived laziness in the news, and increasing secular content in the theaters. Furthermore, the showing of disparaging and racist films incited conflict. With unrest in the air, tensions rose between the church and theater-going (secular) communities. Despite the shared interest of “racial uplift,” the pathways to this future appear disparate in the article in their competition for attention and the increasing commercialization of film leading to contentions in morality (ie Reverend Corbett J. Edward’s sermon denouncing the “great evil” of film (115)).