Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America's First Black Filmmaker

by Patrick McGilligan

Book Overview

Oscar Micheaux was the Jackie Robinson of film, the black D. W. Griffith--a bigger-than-life American folk hero whose important life story has been nearly forgotten today. The son of freed slaves, he roamed America as a Pullman porter before making his first mark as a homesteader in South Dakota--and going on from there to become the king of the race cinema industry, producing and/or directing nearly forty films during a time of Jim Crow segregation...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060731400
• ISBN13: 9780060731403
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Oscar Michaeaux:The great and only.The life of America's first black filmmaker

LUV IT!!!!!LUV IT!!!! Exciting!!!!! Refreshing!!!!This book is so good I feel like I have stepped back in time!!!!!!Amazing!!!!!!Can't put it down!!!!!

a Great Book on a Great Black Pioneer Film-maker

Oscar Micheaux was a Ground-breaking Film-Maker who paved the way for the Likes of Melvoin Van Peoples,Ossie Davis Jr, Gordon Parks,Spike Lee, John Singleton and other Highly Creative African-American film-Makers that carried on the tradition that was set by Micheaux. Patrick Mcgilligan does a Great job at speaking on the Independence of Oscar Micheaux's creativity. a great job of talking and speaking on Micheaux's Creativity. this Book is a Great introduction for a New Generation just discovering the Great works of Oscar Micheaux. a Must read and have.

A great book about a great man

McGilligen's "deep background" research pays off as his prose brings life to the mysterious life of Oscar Micheaux. McGilligen's knowledge of film history and movie directors brings historical context and makes Micheaux's accomplishments seem all the more amazing. Paced like a novel, the book is sprinkled liberally with Micheaux's own words, and really seems to capture the man. I certainly hope this book introduces Micheaux to a new generation of readers.

McGilligan does it again!

Having successfully chronicled such outsiders behind the camera as Cukor and Lang, celebs with secrets like Eastwood and Nicholson, and iconic geniuses like Hitchcock, I must say that I was surprised when I picked up this latest from the master film historian becuase I knew absolutetly nothing about the book's subject, a deficiency I am afraid that I share with the vast majority of American film-goers. Now thanks to McGilligan's mastery I a aware of the "great and only" Oscar Micheaux who seems to have gotten the short shrift of American History in much the same manner as Crispus Attucks and Danile Hale Williams. McGilligan charts the almost unchartable as this self-made man moves from porter to homesteader to author to film-maker, mixing the economics and art of the early film industry in an effort to supply entertainment and Art to an audience neglected by the major studios. Filled with documentation, numerous name walk-ons, and insightful criticisms one is left with only one question after reading this book : how could Oscar Micheaux have been so neglected by both the public eye and history? ... and the fact that that question is raised is all to the credit of McGilligan's work. BRAVO Patrick McGilligan - you've done it again! Please try to write faster.