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Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America's First Black Filmmaker | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Mcgilligan
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $9.85
You Save: $7.10 (42%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 343206
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060731400
Dewey Decimal Number: 790
EAN: 9780060731403
ASIN: 0060731400
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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 when African-American artists were not welcome in Hollywood. In this groundbreaking new biography, award-winning film historian Patrick McGilligan offers a vivid and fascinating portrait of a true pioneer of American culture who was equal parts visionary, hustler, huckster, innovator, and raffish Barnum-like showman—and the first great African-American filmmaker.
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| Customer Reviews:
 informative and grand--but lacks imaginative framing March 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
For anyone interested in the first true independent filmmaker in american cinema, Oscar Micheaux, this book is a great read. On top of being a wonderfully encompassing biographical project, this book reveals a lot about early hollywood history and the ways in which it created its own fringes. The problem here is that micheaux is a notoriously mysterious person, and the book comes off sometimes as a means of unveiling this mystery. I think that a straightforward biographical format might be a little inappropriate for the purposes of an account of micheaux's life. This is a great start, but a REALLY interesting novelist should take up this material and use it to write a more IMAGINATIVE biography.
Nevertheless, this is a good read for those of you curious about micheaux and his famously independent spirit.
 a Great Book on a Great Black Pioneer Film-maker June 24, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 June 23, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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! June 20, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
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