A Nigger in the Woodpile

A Nigger in the Woodpile is a 1904 American silent film, with a runtime of four minutes. The title is derived from the idiom nigger in the woodpile, meaning something is wrong or "off". A copy is in the Black films section of the Library of Congress.[1] The video can also be found on YouTube.

This article is about the 1904 film. For the figure of speech, see Nigger in the woodpile.
A Nigger in the Woodpile
CinematographyA. E. Weed
Production
company
Distributed byAmerican Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Release date
1904
Running time
4 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent

Synopsis

A deacon, played by a white actor in blackface, is constantly stealing firewood from a white farmer. The farmer, with the help of a companion, places a stick of dynamite in one of the blocks, hoping to rid himself of the thievery in this way. When the deacon returns with an older man (also an actor in blackface) to steal wood he is fooled into taking the dynamite with him, hidden in one of the blocks he stole. He goes home where his wife (again played by a male actor in blackface) is cooking. He places three blocks in the fireplace, the last of which contains the dynamite. Shortly after, it explodes, but no one is killed. The farmer and his friend enter and haul off the old man.[2]

The film was shot in a studio in New York City.[3]

Analysis

Writing about the film's racist content, in Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity, author Jacqueline Najuma Stewart states that the blackfaced actors are "wearing costumes signifying their traditional racial "types": Mammy in apron and bandanna; an uppity "colored deacon," striking Zip Coon figure in top hat and tails: and his partner in crime, a harmless, shabbily dressed, white-haired Uncle Remus. The film depicts African Americans as habitual thieves,... And the film's "punitive" ending (a commonplace in early film comedies) functions to bring about narrative closure at the expense of the black transgressors."[4]

See also

References
  1. Bean, Shawn C. The First Hollywood: Florida and the Golden Age of Silent Filmmaking. Gainesville FL: University of Florida Press, 2008, p. 106.
  2. Coleman, Robin R. Means (1 March 2013). Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-136-94294-5.
  3. Niver, Kemp R. (1982). Bebe Bergsten (ed.). Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress. Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress. p. 222. ISBN 0844404632.
  4. Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma (28 March 2005). Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. University of California Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-520-93640-9.


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