Does anyone else have any misgivings about the fact that this film features some European actors like Jean Simmons and Esmond Knight blacking up to play Indians? Having said that, such a practice was a lot more understandable in 1947 when Powell and Pressburger were making this movie than it was in 1984 when David Lean cast Alec Guinness as an Indian character in 'A Passage to India'.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12)
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The extras were actually a motley crowd from all over the London docks and the East End of London. That's where they were recruited from. It depended which ships were in at the time.
Some of the other examples of blacking-up (or browning-up) like Esmond Knight as the Old General were explained by there not being many actors in the country. Even though the war had finished a year or two earlier many people were still in the forces and many were still abroad. Everyone in the forces didn't go home on the day the war ended
Steve
I have certainly come across much worse cases of 'blacking up' in vintage movies than the ones we see in 'Black Narcissus', although this feature of the film still makes me feel rather uncomfortable and it is one of the reasons why 'Black Narcissus' doesn't make it into my list of all time, solid gold favourite Powell and Pressburger movies like 'Colonel Blimp' and 'The Red Shoes'.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12)
Do you also have a problem with a Black kid (at least that's my guess) playing an Indian kid?
Call me insensitive - they are all actors playing roles. Why is it necessary to be the same ethnic background? Where is the line drawn? I get the feeling that people would have a problem if Merle Oberon were cast since she was only half Indian.
I've just seen this subject brought up too many times.
I did notice the ethni-sizing of Anglo actors especially Jean Simmons. I didn't even realize it was her at first, but I didn't have a problem with it.
The problem was a lack of leading actors to fill those roles. They could find plenty of people to work as stand-ins and extras but those roles didn't require much acting. Kanchi didn't have a lot of dialogue but she did have to act.
Merle Oberon, who was part Indian, was probably too old for the part but even as a younger actress she may not have wanted it. From what I hear, she tried very hard to hide her ethnicity even passing her own mother off as 'the help' when people visited her home.
She probably just didn't want to be typecast; only able to play certain roles. Sabu seemed to get all the Indian-Asian-Persian roles that weren't played by Anglo actors. He seems to always play a different version of a similar role. Black actors could be entertainers, domestics, or laborers but not much else. The same was true of many Asians.
I've seen this 'black-face' done in a few movies lately but each time they were not intended to humiliate or debase the race. It seemed an honest effort to have that race represented in the movie; at least they attempted to make movies that depicted diverse people. It was a good 'problem' for them to have. They tried to resolve it as best they could.
In the 'olden' days, men played women's roles even though there were always plenty of women around who could have played themselves. It just wasn't done. At least the filmmakers made an effort considering the lack of diversity in Hollywood at the time.
That said, when we watch any movie, we are accepting the actor (usually) as the character they're portraying. They may get hair and makeup, padding, prosthetic noses, chins, etc. to make them look the part. This 'blacking up' isn't much different. People get sensitive about it, I think, when it's used to ridicule.
@mdonin
I've seen this 'black-face' done in a few movies lately but each time they were not intended to humiliate or debase the race. It seemed an honest effort to have that race represented in the movie; at least they attempted to make movies that depicted diverse people. It was a good 'problem' for them to have. They tried to resolve it as best they could.
I totally disagree----the practice of white actors in blackface happened because in the early days of film, white filmmakers/actors were racist as hell and didn't want black actors to even share the screen with white actors unless they were playing servants,slaves, or any role in which they had to bow down/suck up to white people. And make no mistake, the whole "blackface" thing was basically to make fun of black and brown people and to make them look inferior and stupid as compared to the supposedly superior white people over them. Honestly, seen from today, white actors in blackface or even putting on brown makeup to play Indians or Mexicans look stupid as hell in these old films. Like,for example, The Birth Of A Nation, has white actors playing black people (as the stereotypical villains,or course) but when you compare them to the brief scene of actual black people dancing in the film, the white actors with awful makeup look just plain ridiculous as hell. The only "problem" the filmmakers they had was not being able to get past their own racist, colonialist attitudes, that's all. At least Hollywood finally stopped the practice in 1939 (in the U.S.,anyway) after black Americans made it clear that they hated it and were tired as hell of it.
Haven't seen this film yet, but plan to well, as well as Powell/Pressburger's other flicks.
Haven't seen this film yet, but plan to well, as well as Powell/Pressburger's other flicks.
Byravan Viswanathan
I agree with actvista. It is a fact that in the 20's to the sixties Hollywood producers did not want non white actors to play a role shoulder to shoulder with their white counter parts. It was a sickening case of racism as at least in India there have been sterling actors from the 1920's. Incidentally most could speak English well and fluent in more than one Indian language. Despite that only Sabu who was already a Hollywood fixture was used in Black Narcissus.
As for blacks in Hollywood why did they ever accept roles where they helped to portray themselves as untermenschen I wonder. Was money so important?
activista says > the practice of white actors in blackface happened because in the early days of film, white filmmakers/actors were racist as hell and didn't want black actors to even share the screen with white actors1. Filmmakers were probably no more racist than the general public at that time. Their movies reflected the society in which they lived. Racism was an issue so it's seen on the movie screen as well. Blaming movie makers for makes absolutely no sense. Let's not try to whitewash history and alter it because some aspects of it now make us uncomfortable.
playing servants, slaves, or any role in which they had to bow down/suck up to white people.Let's not be snobs and look down our noses at servants, slaves, and others who have worked hard to care for the daily upkeep of others. People who were actually in those roles deserve respect so the actors who portrayed them deserve the same respect.
This is not aimed at any person or any of the comments in particular. I just want to stir the pot and possibly enlighten some people.
Race is now and has been since the late 1970's a political term with no recognized scientific basis. Society in general, not just Hollywood and not just the United States, was much more racist in the 1920's than it is today. It should not have been a challenge to find English speaking South Asians (Hindustani, Pakistani, etc.) in the 1920's and all cultures that I have seen have some form of play acting. So, I would think that they could find actors. However, Hollywood was and is a business. They like to take the easier, surer, and therefor safer path whenever possible.
Now, let's really stir things up.
Anthropology is not my primary area of expertise. I am a nuclear engineer, but I have read up on many subjects. One of them has been anthropology as I tried to find out why I could not find the term "race" in any anthropology textbook written from 1980 on.
Race has been problematic within anthropology since the 1940's. There have been controversies over what race various cultures fit into and how many races there are. In the 1960's and early 1970's, if I recall correctly, the view of anthropologists in the United States was that there were three races, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. In other words, if we are going to "chromotize" the races they are White, Black, and Yellow. Everything else was considered a variation within one of these groups. I actually got into this a little bit in the early 1970's when I was in high school because I was a proponent of physical anthropology and I had friends who championed cultural anthropology.
Well, if we accept those three races and only those three, following the rules of physiognomy that are derived therefrom, the most populous racial group may surprise you. Caucasians actually outnumber the other two. Most people are astounded by such a claim and deny the possibility. "How can that be?" they ask.
Why, dear friend it is because, due to the sharing of common traits ethnic groups that are included by most groupings of the races as Caucasian include:
Western Europeans (of course),
Eastern Europeans (well, okay),
Siberians including some out Mongolians (yes, really),
Most Hispanics (Western Europeans, remember) and Latinos (Huh? No, really, they are White),
South Asians (WTF?, Yes, really under the last classical grouping used, Hindustanis, Pakistanis, and so on were lumped in with the Whites),
Greeks, Turks, Arabs, South Asians, Western and Eastern Europeans, most U.S. Americans, Canadians, and even many Mexicans along with other Central Americans and South Americans all got "White washed."
Since the racist figure of "Little Black Sambo" is actually Hindustani in the story, not African, we find out that he is, technically White. Isn't that enough to freak one out?
When the physical anthropologists tried to categorize skin color and facial features to classify races the statistics defied rationalization. So, they quickly gave up on race as a category. Later on gene mapping proved that they were right. There is more genetic variation among sub-Saharan Africans than among the rest of the human race put together. If you look at English language textbooks on anthropology, there are no races, just cultural groupings.
Now, maybe we can convince Hollywood to pick actors for roles based on how well they project the emotions and recite the lines. (Except for Zoe playing Nina.)
Isn't it more important that the story play well.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
This film wasn't made in Hollywood and had no contribution from any Americans
It was filmed in the UK in 1946/47 just after the end of WWII when a lot of people were still serving abroad (or were still prisoners of war), even many Indians. There weren't many Indian actors to choose from at the time. Most of the non-speaking Indian roles are played by people picked up from the London docks
Steve
Steve;
My initial reaction is to dismiss your comment as a non-sequitur. However, like me you may well intend to "respond to the room." In other words, you are not responding directly to my statement, but to the general thread and used my post to reply to because it was the latest. In that case, your statement is relevant and an interesting point.
The UK and especially England have a continuous culture going back through Elizabethan times and before. Dramas have been written and played by native English speakers for native English speaking audiences that are about cultures in England, France, Italy, Rome, Greece, Africa, and Asia for generations.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
It was a very common practice and at the time, right after the war, I can see there not being very many Central or South Asian actresses in Britain. Actors, yes, but even East Asian actresses like Anna May Wong were fairly rare and didn't get to play significant parts.
That said, I did cringe a bit at it. It wasn't as bad as Dragon Seed in that respect, and Jean Simmons did well in the part, but the casting seemed to go hand in hand with the writing in portraying all of the local people as condescending stereotypes. We were supposed to take Mr Dean's word, for example, that Kanchi was lazy, when the dancing skill she demonstrated would have needed an awful lot of hard work from a very early age to master. Just because she didn't like being a servant girl, didn't mean she was lazy.
Yet, she was portrayed as sly and dishonest and corrupting for the Young Prince, who didn't seem terribly victimized to me when he fell for her charms.
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