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57 2 insurrection! African American Film’s Revolutionary Potential through Black theater did . . . [studio heads] give me a certain amount of freedom? i took a certain amount of freedom [laughs]. —Morgan Freeman on Bopha! (1993) Plays with predominantly black casts are less likely to be adapted into films. This is in part because adaptations of plays with predominantly white casts have been more lucrative. Those plays with predominantly black casts that have been adapted to film tend to receive comparatively lower budgets and less distribution than their white-cast counterparts, shedding new light on the complications of filmmaking in a racialized world. This chapter explores some of the potent possibilities residing in black theater’s intersection with black film. Specifically , plays such as A Raisin in the Sun, A Soldier’s Play, Bopha!, Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and The Color Purple demonstrate the potential of black theater, film, and literature to work in concert to capitalize on each medium ’s benefits. These plays represent the first steps toward using the release of black narratives on multiple platforms (i.e., horizontal integration) via hybrid distribution as strategies in the development of African American film. The following analysis of several source texts and films along with an examination of the offscreen circumstances of each duly exposes the emerging, evolving , and paradoxical positioning of African Americans within the economics of black film. Key elements of dramatic structure and staging as well as the politics of adaptation in narrative, cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound demonstrate how cinematic language can reflect, revise, or repress certain cultural worldviews. Each outcome sheds light on critical sites of empowerment in opposition to Hollywood’s plantation arrangement. They also help shed light on several strategies for developing African American film generally. 58 FiNdiNg FREEdoM oN StAgE ANd SCREEN Micheaux’s Legacy One cannot fully appreciate the intersection of black film and black theater without first discussing Oscar Micheaux, arguably the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century. Micheaux drew on a variety of sources for his films including real events, his own novels, other films such as The Birth of a Nation, and white-authored plays such as Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.1 In this way, Micheaux is a clear example of how theater and other adapted source materials influenced the development of early black film. The legacy of black theater has influenced black film, primarily through the ingenuity of resourceful blacks and allies working across media and asserting creative control whenever and however possible. As such, Micheaux represents a critical legacy for African American film. He made and produced forty-four films in thirty years, twenty-four of which were features.2 He also penned at least ten novels released over three decades.3 While film studies scholar J. Ronald Green stresses that many critics panned Micheaux’s films as being “racked by uneven talents and close budgets,” he also argues that the “poor production values” and “the aesthetics of poor cinema” apparent in Micheaux’s work reflect the concept of “twoness” introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois.4 Green takes film scholar and critic Thomas Cripps to task for describing Micheaux’s films as having “an amateurish, almost naïve artlessness,” particularly in relation to Hollywood production values. Green explains, “Black African art and African American music were important in breaking the arrogant hegemony of decadent classicisms after the turn of the century. Black filmmaking might have helped bring life and reality to Hollywood classicism a few years later. It could still do so today.”5 Just as with Bert Williams’s and George Walker’s contributions to innovating black theatrical performance and genre of musical comedy, Micheaux’s work represents the early potential of black subject matter and worldviews in film. The case studies in this chapter further illustrate this point, also showing how industry practices suppress such possibilities even as blacks continue to resist in various ways. For example, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, the first group of organized black filmmakers and producers, rejected Micheaux’s submission of his autobiographical novel, The Homesteader (submitted with the condition that he direct). As a result, Micheaux entered independent film production, highlighting the need for creative control. Micheaux’s hands-on approach to ensuring the accessibility of his films is of particular import. According to Jesse Rhines, an African American studies scholar, Micheaux was more entrepreneur than artist, addressing distribution...

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