Early Cinema, 1896–1915
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In this excerpt from his essay for Regeneration’s companion volume, film curator Ron Magliozzi looks at the first Black superstar performer Bert Williams and the making of the 1913 film Lime Kiln Club Field Day.
When the Bahamian-born Bert Williams (1874–1922) and his African American partner, George W. Walker, began their entertainment careers together in 1896, it was a remarkably rich period of employment opportunity and creativity for Black artists in the United States; it was also a racially conflicted period. Faced with white audiences’ affection for demeaning minstrel stereotypes of racial inferiority rooted in nostalgic fantasies of prewar slave culture, a progressive-minded faction of the Black entertainment community struggled to raise consciousness. These entertainers’ desire to represent themselves authentically and to control the performance of race onstage led to the production of a once-lost film, known since its rediscovery in 2014 as Lime Kiln Club Field Day, which now stands as a testament to their determination.
In the first two decades of commercial film production, beginning in 1896, more than one hundred race-themed short films were released by US film producers, often using uncredited Black performers. But with titles such as A Watermelon Feast (1896), Dancing Darkey Boy (1897), On the Old Plantation (1901), Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Slavery Days (1903), and The Chicken Thief (1904), these films consistently fed white audiences’ taste for tableaus of plantation life. Reviewing a Williams short released in 1916, a critic for the African American weekly Chicago Defender complained, “Moving picture directors know very little about what to do with the ‘brother’ on celluloid.”
Williams appeared as a solo act and the only Black performer with the Ziegfeld Follies. When Follies announced an alliance with the Biograph Company for the production of a Black-cast feature intended for interracial audiences,  Williams found himself with the opportunity to appear before the camera and bring a sizable company of African American performers with him. The cast of Black performers featured in Lime Kiln represented two generations of stage experience playing before multiracial audiences. Joining Williams were Abbie Mitchell, who would later sing in the premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), Walker Thompson, who later appeared in Oscar Micheaux’s Symbol of the Unconquered (1920) and the sixty-five-year-old Sam Lucas, the pioneering “grand old man of the Negro Stage.” The leading lady Odessa Warren, who had performed in the chorus and designed costumes for Williams and Walker’s stage shows. After his death Williams was compared to Charles Chaplin. Both practiced a contemplative style of comic pantomime that served well for expressing pathos and were known to be intellectual in their private lives. Just so, before the camera in Lime Kiln, Williams is a thoughtful, self-motivated, and resourceful Black man who achieves the thing of most value in a romantic film: the loved one. The lingering close-up kiss between Williams and Warren that ends the footage shot for the film in a slow fade would have been among the boldest expressions of racial progress in popular entertainment at the time—had it been seen.
What market there might have been for the benevolent depiction of African American life in Lime Kiln Club Field Day evaporated with the devastating impact of The Birth of a Nation when it was released in February 1915.
Full essay available in the Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971 exhibition catalogue, available for purchase at the Academy Museum Store.
Ron Magliozzi is curator in the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since he joined the museum in 1979, Magliozzi has organized gallery and theatrical exhibitions and headed special collections acquisitions. Film restoration projects include Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) and the Last Poets’ Right On! (1971). He served as chair of the International Federation of Film Archives Documentation Commission and edited the landmark book Treasures from the Film Archives: A Catalog of Short Silent Fiction Films Held by FIAF Archives (Scarecrow, 1988).
 “The Gambler,” Chicago Defender, August 5, 1916.
 In fact, it was the rising popularity of filmgoing that triggered Klaw & Erlanger’s announcement of their partnership with the Biograph Company for a series of 104 motion pictures exploiting stage plays and performers under contract to them, including Williams. Trade advertisement in Moving Picture News, June 21, 1913, reprinted in Kemp R. Niver, Klaw & Erlanger Present Famous Plays (Los Angeles: Locare Research Group, 1976), 36–37.
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"Mwaka wa 19 wa filamu ya kwanza ya Marekani, ""Lime Kiln Club"" ilitengenezwa na mwigizaji mweusi wa kwanza wa filamu ya Marekani, Bert Williams, na filamu ya mwaka 1913 ""Lime Kiln Club Field Day.""" Wakati wa kuzaliwa kwa Bahamian Bert Williams (1874-1922) na mwenzake wa Kiafrika-Mmarekani George W. Walker walipoanza kazi zao za burudani pamoja mnamo 1896, ilikuwa kipindi chenye utajiri wa fursa za ajira na ubunifu kwa wasanii weusi nchini Marekani. Kwa kukabiliwa na shauku ya watazamaji weupe kwa stereotypes ya minstrel ya kudhalilisha ya chini ya rangi iliyozaliwa katika ndoto za nostalgic za utamaduni wa watumwa wa kabla ya vita, kundi la maendeleo la jamii ya burudani ya Weusi lilijitahidi kuongeza ufahamu. "Tamaa ya wasanii hawa kujiwakilisha wenyewe kwa uhalisi na kudhibiti utendaji wa mbio kwenye jukwaa ilisababisha uzalishaji wa filamu iliyopotea wakati mmoja, inayojulikana tangu ugunduzi wake mnamo 2014 kama ""Lime Kiln Club Field Day,"" ambayo sasa inasimama kama ushahidi wa azimio lao." Katika miongo miwili ya kwanza ya uzalishaji wa filamu ya kibiashara, kuanzia 1896, filamu zaidi ya mia moja za filamu fupi zenye mandhari ya mbio zilitolewa na wazalishaji wa filamu wa Marekani, mara nyingi wakitumia waigizaji weusi wasiojulikana. "A Watermelon Feast (1896), Dancing Darky Boy (1897), On the Old Plantation (1901), Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903), The Chicken Thief (1904) na The Little Prince (1975) ni filamu za kuvutia za watu wazungu.""" "Kulingana na mwandishi wa habari wa Marekani, William Williams, mwandishi wa gazeti la Chicago Defender, alisema: ""Wataalamu wa filamu wanajua kidogo sana kuhusu nini cha kufanya na ""ndugu"" kwenye celluloid." Wakati Follies ilitangaza muungano na Biograph Company kwa ajili ya uzalishaji wa kipengele cha Blackcast, Williams alijikuta na fursa ya kuonekana mbele ya kamera na kuleta kampuni kubwa ya wasanii wa Kiafrika-Wamarekani pamoja naye. Waigizaji weusi waliotajwa katika Lime Kiln waliwakilisha vizazi viwili vya uzoefu wa hatua ya kucheza kabla ya watazamaji wa rangi nyingi. "Waliungana na Williams Abbie Mitchell, ambaye baadaye aliimba katika maonyesho ya kwanza ya George Gershwin's ""Porgy na Bess"" (1935), Walker Thompson, ambaye baadaye alionekana katika Oscar Michele's ""Symbol of the Unconquered"" (1920) na Sam Lucas, mzee wa miaka sitini na tano, mwanzilishi wa ""Mzee Mkuu wa Negro Stage"" Odessa Warren, ambaye alikuwa amefanya kazi katika kwaya na kubuni mavazi kwa ajili ya maonyesho ya hatua ya Williams na Walker." Baada ya kifo chake Williams alilinganishwa na Charles Chaplin. Wote wawili walifanya mazoezi ya mtindo wa kutafakari wa pantomime ya kuchekesha ambayo ilitumika vizuri kwa kuelezea uchungu na walijulikana kuwa werevu katika maisha yao ya kibinafsi. "Kabla ya kuonekana kwenye filamu ya ""Lime Kiln,"" Williams ni mtu mweusi mwenye akili, mwenye kujitolea, na mwenye busara ambaye anafikia kitu cha thamani zaidi katika filamu ya kimapenzi: mpendwa." Kubusiana kwa karibu kati ya Williams na Warren ambayo inaisha picha iliyopigwa kwa filamu hiyo kwa polepole ingekuwa kati ya maonyesho ya ujasiri zaidi ya maendeleo ya rangi katika burudani maarufu wakati huo ikiwa ingeonekana. "Kama vile ilivyokuwa na soko kwa ajili ya picha ya upendo ya maisha ya Waafrika wa Amerika katika ""Lime Kiln Club"" Field Day, ilipotea na athari ya uharibifu wa ""Kuzaliwa kwa Taifa"" wakati ilitolewa Februari 1915." "Kutoka kwa ""Uzalishaji: Black Cinema 1898-1971"" na ""Uzalishaji: Black Cinema 1898-1971"" ni orodha ya sinema za zamani na za kisasa zilizochapishwa na makampuni ya sinema ya Amerika." Ron Magliozzi ni msimamizi katika Idara ya Filamu katika Jumba la Makumbusho la Sanaa ya Kisasa, New York. Tangu kujiunga na makumbusho mwaka 1979, Magliozzi amepanga maonyesho ya maonyesho na maonyesho ya ukumbi wa michezo na kuongoza ununuzi wa makusanyo maalum. Miradi ya ukarabati wa filamu ni pamoja na Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) na Last Poets <unk> Right On! (1971) Miongoni mwao: Aliwahi kuwa mwenyekiti wa Tume ya Hati ya Shirika la Kimataifa la Filamu na kuhariri kitabu cha kihistoria cha Hazina kutoka Hifadhi ya Filamu: Katalogi ya Filamu Fupi za Fasihi ya Kinyume iliyohifadhiwa na Hifadhi ya FIAF (Scarecrow, 1988). "The Gambler, ""Chicago Defender,"" Agosti 5, 1916" Kwa kweli, ilikuwa ni kuongezeka kwa umaarufu wa filamu ambayo ilisababisha Klaw & Erlanger kutangaza ushirikiano wao na Biograph Company kwa mfululizo wa filamu 104 za sinema zinazotumia michezo ya hatua na waigizaji chini ya mkataba wao, pamoja na Williams. "Kumbuka: ""Kamp R. Niver, Klaw & Erlanger Present Famous Plays"" (Los Angeles: Locare Research Group, 1976), 363." Tembea ili Kuchunguza