Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971

Words Dolores O’Donoghue

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the world’s premier institution dedicated to the art and science of movies, opened in September 2021. The seven-storey, 300,000-square-foot museum draws on the unique resources of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is located in the heart of Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile. Visitors are offered an unparalleled experience with exhibitions and programmes that tell the stories of the fascinating world of moviemaking.

Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, the second major temporary exhibition to be organised by the museum, offers the public a chance to learn more about how Black performers and filmmakers have helped shape the evolution of moviemaking. It explores the achievements and challenges of both independent producers and the studio system, from cinema’s infancy in the 1890s through to the height of the civil rights movement. The exhibition features rarely seen excerpts of films restored by the Academy Film Archive, as well as other narrative films and documentaries, newsreels and home movies, photographs, scripts, drawings, costumes, equipment, posters, and historical materials such as entrance tickets, note cards and telegrams, along with augmented reality experiences designed specifically for the exhibition.

The exhibition opens with two versions of a clip from Something Good – Negro Kiss (1898), showcasing vaudeville performers Saint Suttle (1870–1932) and Gertie Brown (1878–1934) in what appears to be one of the earliest examples of on-screen affection by Black actors. This silent work differs markedly from the popular stereotypical caricatures of Black performances at the time.

The next gallery highlights independently made ‘race films’, productions explicitly made for Black audiences, with all-Black casts, created between 1916 and the 1940s. Most of these films were shown at designated Black theatres located in Black neighbourhoods.

The ‘Stars and Icons’ gallery honours the Black performers in Hollywood from the 1920s through to the late 1950s, many of whom achieved mainstream recognition and many who did not. A large-scale installation of more than fifty glamour photographs features top-billed stars and previously uncredited artists as a way of showcasing their lasting influence on American cinema. This installation is in dialogue with home movies that feature private images of stars like the Nicholas Brothers and Cab Calloway. It also looks beyond the United States and highlights the career of Josephine Baker in France. A spotlight on Hattie McDaniel’s controversial Oscar for portraying ‘Mammy’ in Gone with the Wind – the first Oscar won by a Black actor – is also presented in this gallery. While Hattie believed that her historic win would open up opportunities for people of colour in Hollywood, she faced harsh criticism from civil rights activists. They believed that her accepting such a role condoned the practice in Hollywood of casting Black people in demeaning roles as servants, slaves and sharecroppers in movies with racist messages.

The exhibition culminates with a section dedicated to freedom movements, demonstrating how advances in the Black freedom struggle impacted the film industry. A section on World War II, showing propaganda films and newsreels, offers insight into that critical era of the civil rights movement. Photographs, drawings, posters and magazines highlight how actors such as Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier and Paul Robeson used their platforms to fight for social and racial justice. 

Regeneration’s final gallery pays tribute to five Black directors – Madeline Anderson, Robert L. Goodwin, William Greaves, Gordon Parks and Melvin Van Peebles – showing how they helped pave the way for future filmmakers of colour.

• ‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971’ is published in Anthology Volume 18. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
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