Oscar Micheaux
In the years of race cinema, there was only one black man with the determination to write, produce, direct, finance and distribute his own films. That man was Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux was the first black to direct a silent feature, and the first to direct a talkie feature. In so many ways, Micheaux was the D.W. Griffith of race cinema. Many of Micheaux's films exhibited aesthetic techniques originally used by D.W. Griffith, particularly in Griffith's racial movie The Birth of A Nation (1915). On the other hand, many of Micheaux's films also show improvements on Griffith's techniques and responses to his racially driven movie. Even though Oscar Micheaux was the first of his kind, he did not create a new movie sub-genre; but was able to show the power of the black movie maker by being
Existing not only as an artist in the film industry, Griffith was a business man as well. In all, Micheaux produced and directed about 23 silent films and 17 talking pictures. Similarly, having to produce his own films through his own production company, Micheaux was also very much a business man. Micheaux financed his films by showing a previous work and a synopsis of his next project to exhibitors, friends, strangers on the street and the occasional Negro businessman. Due to the lack of enthusiasm that existed in publishing black authors, Micheaux self-published his first novel titled The Homesteader, in 1913. Born in Illinois during 1884, Oscar Micheaux eventually became a South Dakota homesteader in his early 20s. When the film was ready, he peddled it theater door to theater door. Known for spending unusually large amounts of money on films such as Birth of a Nation (1915) and Hearts of the World (1918) and then realizes that, "while the returns from such a subject are slowly accruing, he must turn out a few pot-boilers to keep the wolf from the door. This motivated Micheaux to raise money for his films, and did so in the same manner he had raised money for his novels. the first black to make films that were aesthetically competitive with white filmmakers, and by making films that contradicted films such as Birth of a Nation by showing the power of black filmmakers in responding to mainstream cinema. As stated, raising funds knocking on doors, Micheax also produced smaller films such as The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921) and The Hypocrite (1922) to pay the bills while he worked on his larger scale productions (even though they were shoe-string budgets). Oscar Micheaux was the quintessential self-made success. The Homesteader (1918), Micheaux's first film, premiered in 1918.
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Acceptance Essays
