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African American Cinema
African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. They are an example of Black film. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline. Segregation, discrimination, issues of representation, derogatory stereotypes and tired tropes have dogged Black American cinema from the start of a century-plus history that roughly coincided with the century-plus history of American cinema. From the very earliest days of moving pictures, major studios used Black actors to appeal to Black audiences while also often relegating them to bit parts, casting women as maids or nannies, and men as natives or servants or either gender as a "magical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West Africa, West/Central Africa, Central African with some European descent; some also have Native Americans in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with ''She's Gotta Have It'' (1986). He has since written and directed such films as '' School Daze'' (1988), ''Do the Right Thing'' (1989), '' Mo' Better Blues'' (1990), '' Jungle Fever'' (1991), ''Malcolm X'' (1992), '' Crooklyn'' (1994), '' Clockers'' (1995), '' 25th Hour'' (2002), ''Inside Man'' (2006), ''Chi-Raq'' (2015), ''BlacKkKlansman'' (2018) and ''Da 5 Bloods'' (2020). Lee also acted in eleven of his feature films. His films have featured breakthrough and acclaimed performances from actors such as Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo and John David Washington. Lee's work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Lucas
Sam Lucas (August 7, 1840 – January 10, 1916) was an American actor, comedian, singer, and songwriter. Sam Lucas's exact date of birth is disputed. Lucas's year of birth, to freed former slaves, has also been cited as 1839, 1841, 1848 and 1850. His career began in blackface minstrelsy, but he later became one of the first African Americans to branch out into more serious drama, with roles in seminal works such as ''The Creole Show'' and ''A Trip to Coontown''. He was the first black man to portray the role of Uncle Tom on both stage and screen. James Weldon Johnson described him as the "Grand Old Man of the Negro Stage". Despite his beginnings in minstrelsy, he was vocal about liberating himself from the minstrel profession, and was the only composer of spirituals of his time to present them consistently within the context of jubilee concerts. Early career Lucas was born Samuel Mildmay Lucas (or Samuel Lucas Milady) in Washington Court House, Ohio to free black parents. He sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the " dandified coon". By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s,Clark, Alexis.How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism. ''History''. A&E Television Networks, LLC. 2019. and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sambo (racial Term)
Sambo is a derogatory label for a person of African descent in the English language. Historically, it is a name in American English derived from a Spanish term for a person of African and Native American ancestry. After the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era and beyond, the term was used in conversation, print advertising and household items as a pejorative descriptor for Black people. The term is now considered offensive in American and British English. Etymology ''Sambo'' came into the English language from , the Spanish word in Latin America for a person of South American negro, mixed European, and native descent. This in turn may have come from one of three African language sources. ''Webster's Third International Dictionary'' holds that it may have come from the Kongo word ('monkey')—the ''z'' of Latin-American Spanish being pronounced here like the English ''s''. The Royal Spanish Academy gives the origin from a Latin word, possibly the adjective or another modern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siegmund Lubin
Siegmund Lubin (born Zygmunt Lubszyński, April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was an American motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia. Biography Siegmund Lubin was born as Zygmunt Lubszyński, a son of Samuel Lubszyński and Rebeka Lubszyńska, Polish Jews, in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) or in Poznań on April 20, 1851. His father, a successful ophthalmologist, moved the family for economic reasons to Berlin soon after Zygmunt's birth. There young Zygmunt Germanicized the spelling of his first name to ''Siegmund''. He later graduated from the Heidelberg University and in 1876 emigrated to the United States, where he settled in Philadelphia and worked as an optometrist. Around 1881, he shortened his surname from the Polish Lubszyński to Lubin. He soon progressed to making his own camera and projector combination, which he sold. In 1896 he began distributing films for Thomas Edison. In 1897 he started ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narrative Film
Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature-length films. The earliest narrative films, around the turn of the 20th century, were essentially filmed stage plays and for the first three or four decades these commercial productions drew heavily upon the centuries-old theatrical tradition. In this style of film, believable narratives and characters help convince the audience that the unfolding fiction is real. Lighting and camera movement, among other cinematic elements, have become increasingly important in these films. Great detail goes into the screenplays of narratives, as these films rarely deviate from the predetermined behaviours and lines of the classical style of screenplay writing to maintain a sense of realism. Actors must deliver dialogue and action in a believable way, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minstrel Shows
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows caricatured black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.The Coon Character , Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. Retrieved 29 January 2016.John Kenrick [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Something Good – Negro Kiss
''Something Good – Negro Kiss'' is a short silent film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely stereotypical presentation of racist caricature in popular culture at the time it was made. The film was a lost film until its rediscovery in 2017, and was added to the American National Film Registry in 2018. Production In ''Something Good'', a well-dressed African American couple exchanges several kisses. Between kisses they hold and swing each other's hands and laugh together. The chemistry in the performances is described as "palpable," conveying an "unmistakable sense of naturalness, pleasure, and amusement." A slightly longer version came to light in 2021; this version shows the couple before they embrace, and includes the "prelude before the kisses, with wooing, refusal and negotiation.” The longer version was produced at the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Panther (film)
''Black Panther'' is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, and it stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. In ''Black Panther'', T'Challa is crowned king of Wakanda following his father's death, but he is challenged by Killmonger (Jordan), who plans to abandon the country's isolationist policies and begin a global revolution. Wesley Snipes planned to make a Black Panther film in 1992, but the project did not come to fruition. In September 2005, Marvel Studios listed a Black Panther film as one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryan Coogler
Ryan Kyle Coogler (born May 23, 1986) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is a recipient of four NAACP Image Awards, four Black Reel Awards, a Golden Globe Award nomination and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. He made his feature-length debut with the independent film ''Fruitvale Station'' (2013), which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. It also won at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, for Best First Film. He has since co-written and directed films such as the ''Rocky'' series spinoff, ''Creed'' (2015), and the Marvel film ''Black Panther'' (2018), the latter of which broke numerous box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time by an African American director. Coogler also co-wrote and directed its sequel '' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'' (2022). Coogler's films have received widespread acclaim and commercial success. His work has been hailed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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