introduction
Hidden under the surface of comedy is both a question of history and a rebellion against reality.
The classical Hollywood film style constitutes an aesthetic system that can be exploited (or opposed) by film creators. For the viewer, it is an important part of the vision of expectation, whether at the production level or from the consumer level, a Hollywood film may use coding and programming from many other text systems, or simply refer to these systems, which makes the film a meeting point between texts, that is, a convergence point for many ideographic practices.
In the 1910s, the first short black film in the film field appeared, The Railroad Porter (1910), directed by Bill Foster, who also founded the first black film company. In the 1920s, there were nearly seven hundred movie theaters in the black community. In 1939, Hardy McDaniel, a black actress who played a black nanny in the film Gone with the Wind, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the first time, becoming the first black actor to marry an image.
"Black film" mainly refers to the meaning of the film determined and realized by black people, with black cultural characteristics and values, its accurate title should be "black-led film", in terms of conceptual attribution, it is actually a part of "black oriented film" ( that is, black theme film ) .
Within the broader framework of black film, there are several subdivisions: black independent films and black commercial films (both of which can be collectively referred to as black-led films or abbreviated black films); films with serious social issues directed by other ethnic groups, starring blacks or reflecting multi-ethnic relations, and popular commercial films. Based on a 2014 autobiography by Ron Stahlworth, the film "Black Party" tells the story of a black Colorado policeman who successfully infiltrates the local 3K party organization and goes undercover.
The film makes the other textual systems in the production of cinematic meaning the clearest in the work, and this performance reminds the audience of some text details that they are familiar with, and thus produces some kind of effect. For example, the film uses the footage of "Gone with the Wind" and "The Birth of a Nation" for parallel editing, the beginning connects the film with the text details of "Gone with the Wind", the speech of the black leader pulls the timeline back to the era of slavery, breaking the stereotype of the nanny and servant that appeared on the screen in the early days of black people, and the film also satirizes the negative, non-objective and even distorted portrayal of the direct or indirect impact on the living conditions of black people in the United States, which is also a media reflection on the entire film history.
The climax of the film uses parallel clips created by Griffith to show the scene of the Ku Klux Klan watching "The Birth of a Nation" and the black rally, and the director mixes the material for "The Birth of a Nation" to show the two-line political life in American society and express the director's protest. The birth of a nation enjoyed a lofty place in the history of cinema, and as early as 1915, David Griffiths's use of parallel montages and last-minute rescues became the epitome of narrative techniques in later early films, "portraying blacks as blind slaves or foolish criminals, specializing in robbery, rape, and murder." ”
Although this beloved film was criticized for its biased racial notions, it undoubtedly reflected the racial perceptions of most white people in American society at the time. From this film onwards, the director cuts together relevant clues and makes his own comments and attitudes. Although the film is set in the early 1970s, the director does not hesitate to move from nearly half a century of racist institutions throughout the event. The black-and-white opposition presented by cross-editing and parallel editing makes "Gone with the Wind" and "The Birth of a Nation" form a media intertextuality.
Every Hollywood film is a network of mutual texts that rely on the design of meanings already present in other films and other art forms. Spike Lee's unique power and new perspective on film itself allowed him to break away from the deep-rooted film model of traditional film and establish his own aesthetic standards and film techniques. Spike Lee's presentation of the film is not merely a deconstruction of fantasy and a perfect ending, but a desire to provoke criticism and critical thinking, all derived from an aesthetic system consistent with his intentions.
While Hollywood transforms its most complex contradictions into simple dynamic states and inevitably leads to a happy ending, Spike Lee presents the American racial machinery as all of its complex and unsolvable problems. "What I've done is put on the screen what we're talking about that's important, and that's the charm of the movie." Spike Lee said in an interview.
Spack Lee, freed from his dependence on Hollywood style and had a deep cultural foundation, took black cinema to new heights by taking black cinema to new heights because of its inter-textual background in the history of aesthetic film.
A shadow and a word, the world is illusory
It is a stormy boat, and the words can withstand sorrow
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Public account team: Drama and Film and Television Studies, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology
Final South Film Talk Film Group