Birthright
“Birthright” may be a talkie, but Oscar Micheaux’s remake of his 1924 silent film is as simplified and melodramatic a narrative as you’ll find in the early era of sound films. That’s not a bad thing, exactly, and considering the silent film origins, it makes sense- because filmmakers were unable to use spoken dialogue, the scripts and characterizations were naturally more exaggerated and stripped down of complexity so the ideas could be more simply presented. That doesn’t mean it isn’t jarring to see that type tone in a talking picture.
The first couple of minutes of “Birthright” are title cards, setting a context for the film we are about to see. It can currently (as of 2020) be seen on Netflix, and is part of a collection of films from early African-American filmmakers from Kino Lorber. The first title cards tell us about this being a remake of Micheaux’s earlier adaptation of this story by T.S. Stribling, and how the silent version is a “lost film.” We also get the start of the narrative we’re about to watch, as that footage was not found, and the narrative of it had to be reconstructed using the screenplay and other sources. That an incomplete version of this film is the only way it is available, and the original version is lost to time, speaks less about the systemic racism of the film industry, and more to their lack of foresight when it comes to film preservation of any film that was not one of the major titles of the era. That we are able to watch this mostly completed version of a film from one of the first, significant African-American filmmakers is a blessing if you’re interested in digging into film history.
Micheaux’s film tells the story of a young black man named Peter (played by Carmen Newsome), whom has just returned to his Southern hometown of Hooker’s Bend after studying, and graduating, from Harvard. When he returns, he is reunited with his friend, Tump Pack (Alec Lovejoy), a medal of honor winner in WWI, and he hopes to establish a school of higher learning in the town. What Peter finds, however, is that his own education did not prepare him for the overt racism of the South, where the white leaders of the society will do anything to humiliate and demonize the black citizens, even throwing them in jail for the most innocuous of reasons.
One would think that Peter’s efforts to build a school in Hooker’s Ben would occupy the narrative of “Birthright,” but as soon as the film’s narrative roadblocks are put in place on that front, it’s abandoned as a part of the story, and the film becomes a larger treatise on Southern racism on the whole. (The film’s tagline, or subtitle, is “A story of the Negro and the South.”) Micheaux’s film isn’t subtle in how it presents the racial divide, nor should it be; as melodramatic as it plays out, it also plays out rather honestly, given what we know of the Jim Crow era. If it’s not easy to get a hold of the film emotionally, that’s more because of how the decades have reshaped film as a dramatic storytelling medium rather than a reflection of any emotional naivete in this film, in particular, although the story’s focus on the larger idea of Southern racism over a specific character arc doesn’t work in its favor. Yes, Peter’s run in with racism is the focus of the film, but there are plot elements involving Tump Pack, Tump Pack’s girl, Cissie (Ethel Moses), and Peter’s mother (Trixie Smith), as well as Cissie’s dancer sister, Rose (Ida Forsyne), that feel like partial threads that come and go, and don’t always add to the story itself. The film still builds to a satisfying ending, however, but it’s one tinged in sadness, as it shows us the limitations of the world these characters live in, where their only way to achieve their dreams is to move someplace more accepting of them as human beings. I definitely am wanting to search out more of Micheaux’s films moving forward; it’s obvious he was a filmmaker with a lot to say, and I want to hear it for myself.
