Title: Within Our Gates
Genre: Drama, Romance
IMDB User Score: 6.4/10 Stars
Year: 1920
Language: English
Format: Black & White, Silent
Length: 79 Minutes
Director: Oscar Micheaux
Producer: Oscar Micheaux
Screenplay: Oscar Micheaux, Gene DeAnna
Photography: ?
Music: Philip Carli
Cast: Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin, Jack Chenault, William Smith, Charles D. Lucas, Bernice Ladd, Mrs. Evelyn, William Stark, Mattie Edwards, Ralph Johnson, E.G. Tatum, Grant Edwards, Grant Gorman, Leigh Whipper
Oscar: No
Oscar Nomination: No
Budget: ?
Revenue: ?
Reason it’s Worth Watching:
- The earliest surviving film directed by an African-American filmmaker. This film holds immense historical value as the launching point for all of African-American cinema.
- The film was so controversial at the time, that it was cut up and edited extensively, due in large part to the 1919 Chicago race-riots. Most prints were destroyed, and the film was considered lost for 70 years until a lone print was discovered in Spain. No version of the movie exists that depicts the rape and lynching scenes as graphically as the director intended.
- Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
First let me say that this film was damn hard to locate. I guess being completely lost; only to emerge 70 years later will do that to a film. Within Our Gates is an amazing piece of cinematic and cultural history. Born out of a direct response to The Birth of a Nation (1915) and the 1919 Chicago race-riots, this movie is a bleak portrayal of African-American life in the early 1900’s. The thing that probably surprised me the most about this movie was how logical it was. Unlike The Birth of a Nation, the situations seen in Within Our Gates aren’t very black and white (pun intended).
See, when you’re making a movie meant to elevate an entire race of people, it is very easy for a filmmaker to demonize other races in the process. Not so with this movie. In this film, there are good black people and bad black people, just as there are good white people and bad black people. One might take that for granted today, but looking at other “race films” of the era, its easy to see that this kind of open-minded outlook was a rarity at the time. This movie doesn’t ever really get preachy about how white people are keeping down black people. Instead, it shows how PEOPLE in general are keeping other people down. A white man murders another white man; both a black and a white criminal try and kill each other over a game of cards, and a black preacher scams his black congregation out of money, all within the course of this movie. This is something I greatly appreciate, because it repeals stereotypes and TRULY puts all races on EQUAL terms, instead of favoring one race over another.
As for the technical aspects of this movie…. well, they kind of suck. Due to the fact that this WAS a black man creating a film in the 1920’s, the budget he was given was abysmally low and it shows. Compared with the million dollar budgets of Griffith films, the cast number here is low, the cuts are choppy, and the environments are noticeably artificial. That doesn’t make the film hard to watch (I mean, you’re already watching a black and white silent film in 2010, a general drop in film quality should be kind of expected.), its just noticeable when coming off of films like Broken Blossoms (1919) that manage to be absolutely beautiful, despite the time period.
However, there is one scene late in the film that will leave an image in your head. That scene is the infamous lynching scene. Now, it’s not exactly “gory” per se, but this is a pretty graphic depiction of a ritualistic hanging. As someone who co-exists in the world with the Saw franchise, this definitely won’t induce any nausea, but you can see why some people went so far out of their way to try and ban this film. The film really does a good job of making the good ol’ white past time of hanging uppity Negroes look like a barbaric practice, and its understandable why southerners at the time would’ve taken offense. Really, I’d recommend this film just on the basis of culture alone. This is a rare gem of a movie that reveals the reality of an unfortunate period of our history, and the moral implications of society conveyed here are as relevant today as they ever have been.
Genre: Drama, Romance
IMDB User Score: 6.4/10 Stars
Year: 1920
Language: English
Format: Black & White, Silent
Length: 79 Minutes
Director: Oscar Micheaux
Producer: Oscar Micheaux
Screenplay: Oscar Micheaux, Gene DeAnna
Photography: ?
Music: Philip Carli
Cast: Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin, Jack Chenault, William Smith, Charles D. Lucas, Bernice Ladd, Mrs. Evelyn, William Stark, Mattie Edwards, Ralph Johnson, E.G. Tatum, Grant Edwards, Grant Gorman, Leigh Whipper
Oscar: No
Oscar Nomination: No
Budget: ?
Revenue: ?
Reason it’s Worth Watching:
- The earliest surviving film directed by an African-American filmmaker. This film holds immense historical value as the launching point for all of African-American cinema.
- The film was so controversial at the time, that it was cut up and edited extensively, due in large part to the 1919 Chicago race-riots. Most prints were destroyed, and the film was considered lost for 70 years until a lone print was discovered in Spain. No version of the movie exists that depicts the rape and lynching scenes as graphically as the director intended.
- Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
First let me say that this film was damn hard to locate. I guess being completely lost; only to emerge 70 years later will do that to a film. Within Our Gates is an amazing piece of cinematic and cultural history. Born out of a direct response to The Birth of a Nation (1915) and the 1919 Chicago race-riots, this movie is a bleak portrayal of African-American life in the early 1900’s. The thing that probably surprised me the most about this movie was how logical it was. Unlike The Birth of a Nation, the situations seen in Within Our Gates aren’t very black and white (pun intended).
See, when you’re making a movie meant to elevate an entire race of people, it is very easy for a filmmaker to demonize other races in the process. Not so with this movie. In this film, there are good black people and bad black people, just as there are good white people and bad black people. One might take that for granted today, but looking at other “race films” of the era, its easy to see that this kind of open-minded outlook was a rarity at the time. This movie doesn’t ever really get preachy about how white people are keeping down black people. Instead, it shows how PEOPLE in general are keeping other people down. A white man murders another white man; both a black and a white criminal try and kill each other over a game of cards, and a black preacher scams his black congregation out of money, all within the course of this movie. This is something I greatly appreciate, because it repeals stereotypes and TRULY puts all races on EQUAL terms, instead of favoring one race over another.
As for the technical aspects of this movie…. well, they kind of suck. Due to the fact that this WAS a black man creating a film in the 1920’s, the budget he was given was abysmally low and it shows. Compared with the million dollar budgets of Griffith films, the cast number here is low, the cuts are choppy, and the environments are noticeably artificial. That doesn’t make the film hard to watch (I mean, you’re already watching a black and white silent film in 2010, a general drop in film quality should be kind of expected.), its just noticeable when coming off of films like Broken Blossoms (1919) that manage to be absolutely beautiful, despite the time period.
However, there is one scene late in the film that will leave an image in your head. That scene is the infamous lynching scene. Now, it’s not exactly “gory” per se, but this is a pretty graphic depiction of a ritualistic hanging. As someone who co-exists in the world with the Saw franchise, this definitely won’t induce any nausea, but you can see why some people went so far out of their way to try and ban this film. The film really does a good job of making the good ol’ white past time of hanging uppity Negroes look like a barbaric practice, and its understandable why southerners at the time would’ve taken offense. Really, I’d recommend this film just on the basis of culture alone. This is a rare gem of a movie that reveals the reality of an unfortunate period of our history, and the moral implications of society conveyed here are as relevant today as they ever have been.
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