Website Search
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Catalog Search
Books
Black cinema treasures : lost and found
- Author / Creator
- Available as
- Physical
- Summary
-
Alerted to the existence of a cache of old films in a Texas warehouse in 1983, Jones, a professor of cinema and video and founder-director of the Southwest Film/Video Archives, saved them from disi...
Alerted to the existence of a cache of old films in a Texas warehouse in 1983, Jones, a professor of cinema and video and founder-director of the Southwest Film/Video Archives, saved them from disintegration. The 22 rediscovered films were made by black producers, directors, and writers for exclusively black audiences from the 1920s to the early 1950s. They provide one of the best sources for knowledge of the black self-consciousness in America during those years. Director and actor Ossie Davis' foreword and Jones' overview of the history of black filmmaking discuss the "authenticity and awkwardness" of the films, compare them with Hollywood-made all-black-cast films of the 1930s, and explain their social significance. Brief biographies and filmographies of the pioneers of black filmmaking--Oscar Micheaux, Spencer Williams, William Alexander, and George Randol--are included as are film synopses and frame blowups. ISBN 0-929398-26-2: $29.95.
Details
Checking for availability...
- Creator
- G. William Jones ; foreword by Ossie Davis
- Format
- Books
- Language
- English
- Publication
-
- Denton : University of North Texas Press, ©1991
- Physical Details
-
- 242 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- ISBNs
- 0929398262, 9780929398266, 092939836X, 9780929398365
- OCLC
- ocm23356012
- Filmography: pages 191-232.
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-234) and index.
- Also issued online.
- Foreword / by Ossie Davis -- Introduction: King Tut's Warehouse: Finding the Films -- The Non-White World of All-Black Cinema -- Some Pioneer Black Filmmakers: Oscar Micheaux: the Dean of Black Filmmakers -- Spencer Williams -- William Alexander -- George Randol -- The Tyler, Texas, Black Film Collection: The Blood of Jesus -- Dirty Gertie from Harlem, U.S.A. -- The Girl in Room 20-- Juke Joint -- Marching On -- Midnight Shadow -- Miracle in Harlem -- Murder in Harlem (Lem Hawkins' Confession) -- Souls of Sin -- By-Line Newsreels (Four Episodes) -- Other Short Films in the Collection: Broken Earth -- Boogie Woogie Blues -- Daughters of the Isle of Jamaica -- Harlem Hot-Shots -- Junior Jeeps -- Vanities -- Comments from Some of Today's Black Filmmakers: How the Films Were Produced, Distributed, Exhibited -- and What Became of the System -- What Black Independent Films Meant to the Black Community -- Working With Spencer Williams -- A Final Comment: "We Could Have Been Friends."