Writing Himself Into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences

by Louise Spence, Pearl Bowser, Professor Louise Spence

Book Overview

Winner of the 2001 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Awards Winner of the Theatre Library Association Award

Writing Himself Into History is an eagerly anticipated analysis of the career and artistry surrounding the legendary Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. With the exception of Spike Lee, Micheaux is the most famous--and prolific--African American film director. Between 1918 and 1948 he made more than 40 "race pictures," movies...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813528038
• ISBN13: 9780813528038
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The First Good Book about an Important Director-- & His World

Those who are troubled by academic writing may be a little put off by this book--but only just a little. Particularly in the opening pages, the authors go to great pains to make the usual postmodernist genuflections: "how can we possibly know anything?" "do we exist?" etc. Once you get past that, their reconstruction of Micheaux's career and films is wonderful. They not only reconstruct his life as an artist--in the process separating a great deal of fact from self-generated fiction--but they also reconstruct his cultural setting and the context in which his films are released. To my taste, they're a little too easy on Micheaux for his fairly reflectionist notion of cinematic realism. However, they almost convinced that I'm wrong--which is the highest compliment you can pay any work of scholarship.