“That’s the Difference, I Am Fully Engaged With Art”: Renée Baker on the Practice of Scoring Silent Film and the Matter of “Race Movies”

This lengthy conversation with Renée Baker engages with her multi-modal practice as a visual artist and composer of sound scores for silent films, particularly the “race movies” Body and Soul (dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1925), The Scar of Shame (dir. Frank Peregini, 1927), and Borderline (dir. Kenneth MacPherson, 1930). Baker contends that these films render more complex and nuanced readings of black life and community than Hollywood renderings and that they contributed to the recovery of Black history.