Where Oblivion Dwells’: Forgotten Classics

“There, far away; where oblivion dwells”, writes Cernuda, recalling the inevitability of time and, therefore, the subsequent absence of memory. Oblivion, though unjust, is irremediable. In the field of cinema, there is an inordinate number of films that have been forgotten within the cultural panorama due to the cruelty of time and the persistence of certain films to remain paradigms within the history of film.

We all remember Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015) as a western that blends the scepticism of Agatha Christie with the virulence of 1970s Blaxploitation; however, many seem to overlook the influence, admitted by Tarantino himself, that André de Toth’s Day of the Outlaws (1959) had on Tarantino’s movie. The Day of the Outlaw is about a rancher

(Robert Ryan) who faces a gang of outlaws who are trying to take his land in a frozen Wyoming.

At first glance, it might appear to be the starting point of a story of revolvers, sombreros and horses typical of the Western genre. Nevertheless, as well as making you feel cold just by watching it, it also laid the foundations for the snowy westerns that precede it, such as Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack, 1972) or Wind River (Taylor Sheridan, 2017). Thus, it seems that certain influential films that marked a particular era, to quote Borges, “walked into oblivion” never to be remembered again. Yet, the fact that they are not mentioned does not mean that they did not - and do notenjoy an equal or greater impact, albeit surreptitiously, than canonical films within the contemporary context. Continuing with the importance of de Toth, his film The House Of Wax (André de Toth, 1953) was one of the first, if not the first, to innovate with 3D (a paradoxical fact given that the director was one-eyed). Take that, James Cameron!

That certain films are forgotten is not entirely due to the passage of time. Admittedly, throughout history, cinema has been a man’s game, and, particularly, a white one at that. It took eighty years for a woman director to finally win the Oscar. And no black person has yet won the Oscar for best director. For that reason, in the twentieth century, ground-breaking films directed by outsiders to the white elitism that dominated the board were underappreciated and swept into oblivion.

Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), for instance, is the first film noir directed by a woman and a filmic exercise ahead of its time. The fedora and the femme fatale have always been male-dominated elements (who doesn’t remember the fantastic The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1943) or the nail-biting films directed by Alfred Hitchcock?) However, The Hitch-Hiker subverts the conventions of film noir to create a film set in the southern United States where two friends in a car are threatened by the arrival of a hitchhiker. Here, there is no sexualised femme fatale, no revolver and no corrupt detective, but a low-budget film that challenges male authority. It should also be noted that Lupino’s film has been a major influence on directors such as the Coen Brothers or Quentin Tarantino. In the case of the former, the corrosive Fargo (Ethan Coen, 1996) could be considered a direct descendant of Lupino’s film, as the Coen Brothers subvert the rules of film noir to portray a black chronicle of male stupidity in a rural American context.

On the other hand, while The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) revolutionised the history of cinema by its never-before-seen forms and, at the same time, making an apology for racism and slavery, the African-American director Oscar Micheaux was practically forgotten from the history of film. His film Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920) is a forgotten classic that sought to challenge the racist stereotypest presented in D.W. Griffith’s film. However, his film fell into obscurity while Griffith’s film was still considered an untouchable classic of cinema. Nevertheless, Micheaux’s vindication is imperative as he is considered one of the pioneers in portraying AfricanAmerican lifestyle. In Within Our Gates, Micheaux depicts the story of an Afro-American woman who travels to the Northern United States in search of funds for a rural school in the Deep South for poor black children. In it, Micheaux explores the consequences of racism in America, from extreme bigotry to deadly lynchings. Although may be considered a difficult film to watch, it is necessary since Micheaux tries to counter the caricatured and comical portrayal towards black people, such as the Jim Crow representation, in an attempt to reclaim African-American pride. Although he was forgotten and reviled over time, the truth is that Micheaux has ultimately been revendicated by contemporary directors such as Spike Lee and John Singleton. Consecutively, classic cinema has always been there. Who doesn’t remember Humphrey Bogart’s “we’ll always have Paris” at the end of Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)? However, beneath the rise of the classic cinema that we all remember, some films have faded into oblivion over time. The films of de Toth, Lupino or Micheaux are but one example of the immense number of films that have been unjustly forgotten, either because time has failed to rejuvenate such works or because socio-cultural circumstances have prevented important films from making a place for themselves in the history of cinema. For this reason, it is necessary to see the other side of the coin to rediscover hidden classics to reclaim them and appreciate their influence even nowadays, without neglecting the already popular classics. Of course, Casablanca will always be in our hearts.