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Ruminations on Micheaux’s BODY AND SOUL (1925) & Murnau’s FAUST (1926)

I find both of these films very odd, and both very daring and challenging for the times, but neither particularly satisfying.

Of the two Murnau’s FAUST is by far the better known, well… as well known as silent films get, with numerous re-masterings and expensive restorations done, and new scores routinely crafted for it, and volumes of critical analysis written, and the darling of film courses everywhere.

And while I’m a huge fan of F.W. Murnau’s SUNRISE (Sunrise along with Erich Von Stroheim’s GREED, and a handful of others, is considered, rightly I believe, one of the greatest silent films ever made); I’m not as enamored of his FAUST. The technical wizardry for the day was ground breaking, but FAUST, for me suffers a couple of flaws we’ll get into in a moment.

Because flaws aside FAUST has maintained a level of attention, accolades, and restoration to be envied, while Oscar Micheaux’s BODY AND SOUL, has pretty much become an invisible film. No restorations, no re-masterings, and fairly unseen and unknown.

Which is a shame because the two films make an interesting diptych on religion and carnality and the suffering of women; the almost crucifixion of women at the hands of a dismissive, patriarchal society. And they both offer intriguing performances by their respective female leads.

BODY AND SOUL, is one of the few surviving silent ‘RACE’ pictures (Pictures created by and for Black audiences and the thriving Black movie theater circuit that comprised 600 black owned theaters [as opposed to the half dozen in existence today], popular in the years from 1915 to 1928) and as such, is an intriguing and historically important part of both cinema and highlighting the cultural fabric and concerns of the day.

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So called spokesmen for the people, representatives, annoy me.

Whenever you see someone using the term political correctness, they are disparaging it, typically. Which is funny considering the ones bitching about the term are the ones who coined the term in the first place.

Well it wouldn’t be America if people didn’t build things up so they could have something to tear down.

Like African-American.

Incredibly stupid term, taken out of the unifying context it was first used in (most clearly in the 60s as a call for economic and cultural ties with the larger global African/Black community, including Libya, which today a loose-cannon American administration and war-machine is currently bombing into the stone-age).

If you’re Black and you happen to live in America, you’re not fucking African-American.

I’ll say it again… You are not African American.

You’re Black. You also happen to be American.

But Nationality and Ethnicity are two separate fucking things and should remain so. Because these days, your nationality is doing its level best to exterminate your ethnicity. And if you confuse where you live, with what you are, the truth of that genocide may be lost on you, until they come knocking on your door. And by then it’s going to be a little damn late, isn’t it?

And of course being puppets of an inane media we all, regardless of color, tend to some degree to integrate these divisive stupidities that the propaganda machine feeds us.

But that’s why you have to wake up a bit, and be aware of the strings that are pulling you.

So that you can cut them, or at the very least… pull back.

So getting back to Political Correctness, and these morons who can’t go a single day without whipping on Political Correctness for this or for that. They never quite make sense do they?

It’s because political correctness is a nonsense word, put in place just to muddy the conversation, even in the head of the speaker.

I’ll say that again.

Even in the head of the speaker.

If you want to know what people are railing against when they use the term Political Correctness, replace it with respect. And you’ll see what people are really arguing against. They are arguing against having to respect each other. It’s that simple. They are even arguing against having to respect themselves.

So the next time that moron in your life or at your job starts going on about Political Correctness, have him say again the sentence, substituting the word respect, and you’ll both really understand how idiotic and petty are the things he’s really bitching about.