10 Book Review V I D E O A G E January 2022 In 1914, the film director D.W. Griffith began work on a silent film that would address the aftermath of the Civil War in the American South. Released the following year, The Birth of a Nation would be hailed as a technical masterpiece, but its story would represent a terrible blemish on the history of many Americans. Ultimately, the film would be remembered for its racist depiction of Black Americans, who were played by white actors in blackface, and for its attempt to heroize the efforts of the Ku Klux Klan. The film was adapted from the play and novel The Clansman by Thomas Dixon, whose Southern family joined the Klan during the Reconstruction era. In the lead-up to the film, Dixon called on his old classmate and friend, President Woodrow Wilson, who then hosted a screening of The Birth of a Nation at the White House. Here is where writer Wil Haygood begins his latest book about a century of Black stories and lives in American cinematic history. Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World (464pgs., Knopf, 2021, U.S. $30) is anencyclopedic account of the ways that cinema has shaped the experience of Black Americans but also how Black filmmakers and talent have transformed the stories that are told in Hollywood. Of the U.S. release of The Birth of a Nation, Haygood reminds the public that Black Americans at the time revolted upon seeing the onscreen depictions, with many groups organizing protests against the film. “The Birth of a Nation was big business in America,” writes Haygood. “During its first theatrical run, the movie grossed between $50 million and $60 million. Men got rich; careers were indelibly made. The Birth of a Nation even helped change the dynamics of how America went to the movies! Theatre owners began keeping theatres open with longer hours.” Colorization inventories many such events across American cinema in the 20th century, events that run the gamut of emotions from joy to heartbreak to disappointment. Throughout the book, Haygood’s prowess as a storyteller and researcher is on display. Haygood, a former reporter for the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, has previously written eight books, including biographies of former Justice of the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall, pastor and politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and professional boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, among others. His writing entered the world of film when his book The Butler: A Witness to History inspired the screenplay for Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which is loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen and his service in the White House. From the infamous screening of The Birth of a Nation, Haygood moves on to explore the life of writer and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, born in 1884 in Southern Illinois. The son of a former slave, Micheaux had a curious and imaginative mind that led him to work as a Pullman porter, which allowed him to see much of the country. In the early 20th century, he came to acquire land in South Dakota, where he lived as a homesteader. Micheaux recorded his life on the farm, and his romances and heartaches, in his work, writing novels that were in part autobiographical. Later on, he made films, adapting his novels and those of others for the screen, serving as director and producer on over 44 films in the early 20th century. “The wonder of it all is that the moviemaking life didn’t crush Oscar Micheaux,” writes Haygood. “He had come into Black filmmaking when it hardly existed, creating much of its origins and giving it ballast and a heartbeat. What D.W. Griffith had drilled into the minds of white America — that Blacks were untrustworthy and devoid of humanity — Oscar Micheaux tried to undo.” Haygood chronicles the cinematic contributions of many Black filmmakers and talent. He presents brief studies on the impacts of Theresa Harris, who starred alongside Barbara Stanwyck in the Warner Bros. drama Baby Face, and Hattie McDaniel, whose performance in the MGM historical romance Gone with the Wind led her to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first Black performer to win an Academy Award. Elsewhere, Haygood touches on an abundance of writers, actors, filmmakers — everyone from Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte to Ava DuVernay and Spike Lee — as well as topics such as the Black maid trope and Blaxploitation films. Haygood closes Colorization with a meditation on the present moment by first looking at the past. He tells the story of the escaped slave known as Gordon, who would become memorialized in a photograph featured in Harper’s Weekly in 1863. One of the most famous pictures from the American Civil War period, the photograph was titled The Scourged Back, as it showed the crisscross scarring on Gordon’s back that he received while enslaved. (Gordon’s story would later be dramatized in the Will Smith-starring film Emancipation, which will be released on Apple TV+ later this year.) Colorization attests to the ills in American history and yet also foregrounds the innovation and daring storytelling from Black filmmakers and performers. Haygood has made a hefty contribution to the literature of Black life in film and entertainment. Writer Wil Haygood chronicles Black stories and lives throughout cinematic history in his latest book. A Century of Black Filmmaking: How Black Americans Have Transformed Film By Luis Polanco Colorization is an encyclopedic account of the ways that cinema has shaped the experience of Black Americans but also how Black filmmakers and talent have transformed the stories that are told in Hollywood.
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