A dramatic flashback within Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920) shows the history of violence against African Americans in a powerful antidote to the distortions of D.W. Griffith’s much more famous The Birth of a Nation (1915). Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) has escaped from the lynch mob that has killed her uncle and aunt only to be threatened with sexual violence. Micheaux’s film uses melodrama as effectively as Griffith’s—Sylvia will be spared.
Discussion Questions
After watching these clips from Within Our Gates, consider the questions below. Then submit your response.
1. What is your response to the unfamiliarity of this film’s images—its historical form and its subject matter? Why might the film have seemed dangerous? Do you think it would have made a difference in film history if the film had not been lost?
2. How does cross-cutting, a mode of editing mastered by Griffith, contribute to the scene’s effect?