It's one thing for a "marginal cinema" to willfully want to exist on the edges of popular consciousness, quite another thing altogether for a cinema to be made by and for a people that have been pushed to the margins by racism and prejudice. Since 1976, The Separate Cinema Archives have been dedicated to collecting, cataloging and exhibiting the history of this latter brand of "marginal cinema". Their website contains a wide assortment of African-American movie posters, from "race pictures" from the early days of movies to '70s blaxploitation to current Hollywood hits. The Smithsonian has a cool collection as well. The Black Film Center/Archive is another excellent resource, which includes a fascinating (but also somewhat disturbing) collection of very early motion pictures (1890s) featuring African-Americans, or sometimes whites in blackface.
No comments:
Post a Comment