"Charleston Parade" is a 1926 silent, short film by director Jean Renoir. Set in the year 2028, the film sees a pilot in blackface and minstrel attire leaving a futuristic, high-tech Africa and flying to a primitive, post-apocalyptic France.
When our pilot lands, he meets an attractive, scantily clad woman. She's a carnal creature who throws her body at the unsuspecting pilot, who in turn shyly rejects her advances. The woman then begins to communicate with the pilot using dance, scenes which anticipate Renoir's own "French Cancan" (1954).
Though dismissed as a silly film, "Charleston Parade" abounds with interesting reversals. Renoir flips white and black stereotypes by assigning frenzied, tribal movements to whites (and a pet monkey no less) and dandyish behaviour (and sexual timidness) to the pilot. The pilot is himself played by Johnny Huggins, a black man, yet one who wears blackface paint, reversing the racist implications of minstrel shows. The film then ends with the pilot taking the primitive white girl back to Africa, where she will reintroduce white aboriginal dance to a people who have lost their own art-form by dint of distance from their ancestors. But while the film parodies white/black historical relations, it also points to common bonds. For Renoir, dance rather than film constitutes a shared language and perhaps also the chief art form from which cinema sprang.
Incidentally, the 1920s saw the birth of new African-American communities in Paris. After WW1 ended, many African American GIs decided to stay in France, which lacked the widespread racism of the United States. It was also around this time that jazz was introduced to the French, as well as other aspects of black culture. Pretty soon African American musicians, artists and Harlem Renaissance writers began flocking to Paris – the city's Luminous Years – an exodus which WW2 promptly stopped.
9/10 - Even minor Renoir is good Renoir.
When our pilot lands, he meets an attractive, scantily clad woman. She's a carnal creature who throws her body at the unsuspecting pilot, who in turn shyly rejects her advances. The woman then begins to communicate with the pilot using dance, scenes which anticipate Renoir's own "French Cancan" (1954).
Though dismissed as a silly film, "Charleston Parade" abounds with interesting reversals. Renoir flips white and black stereotypes by assigning frenzied, tribal movements to whites (and a pet monkey no less) and dandyish behaviour (and sexual timidness) to the pilot. The pilot is himself played by Johnny Huggins, a black man, yet one who wears blackface paint, reversing the racist implications of minstrel shows. The film then ends with the pilot taking the primitive white girl back to Africa, where she will reintroduce white aboriginal dance to a people who have lost their own art-form by dint of distance from their ancestors. But while the film parodies white/black historical relations, it also points to common bonds. For Renoir, dance rather than film constitutes a shared language and perhaps also the chief art form from which cinema sprang.
Incidentally, the 1920s saw the birth of new African-American communities in Paris. After WW1 ended, many African American GIs decided to stay in France, which lacked the widespread racism of the United States. It was also around this time that jazz was introduced to the French, as well as other aspects of black culture. Pretty soon African American musicians, artists and Harlem Renaissance writers began flocking to Paris – the city's Luminous Years – an exodus which WW2 promptly stopped.
9/10 - Even minor Renoir is good Renoir.