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Title details for Hollywood Black by Donald Bogle - Available

Hollywood Black

The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers

by Donald Bogle
John Singleton
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
The films, the stars, the filmmakers-all get their due in Hollywood Black, a sweeping overview of blacks in film from the silent era through Black Panther, with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle.
The story opens in the silent film era, when white actors in blackface often played black characters, but also saw the rise of independent African American filmmakers, including the remarkable Oscar Micheaux. It follows the changes in the film industry with the arrival of sound motion pictures and the Great Depression, when black performers such as Stepin Fetchit and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson began finding a place in Hollywood. More often than not, they were saddled with rigidly stereotyped roles, but some gifted performers, most notably Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939), were able to turn in significant performances.
In the coming decades, more black talents would light up the screen. Dorothy Dandridge became the first African American to earn a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carmen Jones (1954), and Sidney Poitier broke ground in films like The Defiant Ones and1963's Lilies of the Field. Hollywood Black reveals the changes in images that came about with the evolving social and political atmosphere of the US, from the Civil Rights era to the Black Power movement. The story takes readers through Blaxploitation, with movies like Shaft and Super Fly, to the emergence of such stars as Cicely Tyson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Whoopi Goldberg, and of directors Spike Lee and John Singleton.
The history comes into the new millennium with filmmakers Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Ava Du Vernay (Selma),and Ryan Coogler (Black Panther); megastars such as Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman; as well as Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, and a glorious gallery of others.
Filled with evocative stories of stars and filmmakers on set and off, Hollywood Black tells an underappreciated history as it's never before been told.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Turner Classic Movies

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 10, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781549139680
      • File size: 308715 KB
      • Duration: 10:43:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      May 1, 2019
      This book engagingly chronicles the challenges and achievements of African Americans in Hollywood. After filmmaker John Singleton's foreword and Bogle's introduction, the book is arranged chronologically, by decades after the 1920s. The film industry is contextualized socioeconomically, including hiring difficulties, stereotypes, and distribution. Earlier films are pretty equally covered, but by the millennium, coverage varies, from a couple of sentences to, as with Black Panther, several pages. Bogle details the contributions of significant players, from ground-breaking filmmaker Oscar Micheaux and early sound stars, such as Stepin Fetchit and Nina Mae McKinney, to contemporary standouts like director Ryan Coogler and actor Viola Davis. He does a good job acknowledging additional obstacles that Black women have faced in Hollywood. Bogle's narrative style makes for absorbing reading, and the book's glossy, photo-filled pages will further attract readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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