Language:
English
Year of publication:
2005
Titel der Quelle:
Shofar; an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
23,4 (2005) 26-49
Keywords:
Frank, Leo,
;
Micheaux, Oscar, Criticism and interpretation
;
Phagan, Mary,
;
Jews History 20th century
;
Antisemitism History 20th century
;
Motion pictures
;
Jews in motion pictures
;
Antisemitism in motion pictures
Abstract:
Analyzes the film "Murder in Harlem" (1935), by the African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. The film reproduces, with changes in the names and the setting, the Leo Frank case of 1913-15 - the murder of Mary Phagan and the arrest of the Jew Leo Frank and his lynching by a mob. The tension of the case, in which two men were under suspicion of murder, one Jew and one Black, was often interpreted as an inter-racial tension. In Micheaux's film, the murderer is neither an "educated white" nor an "uneducated Black", but rather the girl's boyfriend. Thus, Micheaux purportedly removed the racial tension of the story and made an anti-racist movie. Argues, however, that this is not so. Micheaux insistently "telegraphs" to the viewer that the true murderer is a Jew and thus recycles much of the antisemitic rhetoric from the actual Leo Frank trial, especially the charges of sexual perversion as inflected by a Jewish identity.
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