Ten Minutes to Live
Directed by Oscar Micheaux • 1932 • United States
Starring Lawrence Chenault, Willor Lee Guilford, Lorenzo Tucker
Resisting the stagebound atmosphere of THE EXILE, Oscar Micheaux found ways to shoot a talking picture on location, without cumbersome and expensive audio recording equipment. He did this by making one of his characters deaf (rendering speech unnecessary) and having much of the dialogue spoken off-camera (so it could be dubbed later). These devices are clumsily executed at times, but they prove that Micheaux had a more canny understanding of the medium than he is often given credit for.
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The Films of Oscar Micheaux
Professor and film scholar Charles Musser provides an overview of the career of the radical, trailblazing black director Oscar Micheaux (whose work is featured in “Pioneers of African American Cinema”), including the reasons behind the limited accessibility to his oeuvre.