Honestly, The Jazz Singer is unquestionably the first black and white film that I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I’m quite impressed. The film, produced by Warner Brothers in 1927, stands as one of the most significant movies in America film history because it is generally considered to be the first Hollywood studio motion picture feature with synchronized sound, and this silent film with sound sequences revolutionized the industry, which serves to be a milestone in the film industry. The film tells a compelling story about Jakie Rabinowitz who is the jazz singer, played by Al Jolson; refusing the destiny to be a cantor, he pursues his dream to be a jazz singer and eventually succeeds. Besides, this film also deals with issues of race and ethnicity. To paraphrase the issues in the light of mise-en-scene and cinematography, I tend to choose the scene of the backstage where Jack is preparing for the rehearsal of the opening night which is also the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
In the first place, I would like to say something about the techniques of cinematography used in this scene. When Mary enters the room, Jack is doing the makeup. A medium shot gives the audience a general view of the room and the body language of the two characters. In this medium shot, it is obvious at first that Jack, on the right part of the screen, and Mary who is standing by the window at the left part of the screen are not very close to but actually a little bit apart from each other. The director probably wants audience to realize that Jack has not completed the assimilation into whiteness that Mary has already made, and that there is still some distance between the two characters even though they show affections mutually. Moreover, Jack seems lower than Mary as he is sitting while she is standing. This height distinction, to some extent, reveals the status in which Mary is superior to Jack. In addition, the director uses a few low-angle close up shots to Mary and high-angle or straight-on close up shots to Jack when they are making a conversation, which perhaps also intends to show Jack is inferior to Mary. There is also a subtle disappointed expression emerging on Mary’s face as she hears Jack’s career means more than anything else, including her, in the world, for she’s been constantly helping him move up the ladder of theatrical success and ushering him into the inner circle of assimilated whiteness. Besides, with the technique of close up shots, the internal dilemma of Jack is unfolded by his struggling facial expression, and synchronously Mary is very worried about the possibility that he might give up this precious chance on Broadway but instead sing for his race. As for Jack, to sing as a jazz singer or to sing as cantor for his people, that is a question.
Cinematography aside, mise-en-scene is a significant factor in this scene as well. Intriguingly, the person who guides Jack to stardom is fellow stage performer Mary Dale. She is always wearing in gleaming white when performing, and this scene makes no exception, literally a vision of whiteness. Accepted as white, she embodies a successful example of Irish American Assimilation. To the contrary, in this scene Jack dresses for his role, covering himself with blackface and a curly wig to appear like an African American jazz singer. This sort of make up, on the one hand, emphasizes his difference from African Americans; on the other, it reveals the similarities in their marginal ethnic status in American society. It is not until this scene that the film introduces blackface. Nevertheless, perhaps the director intentionally makes this arrangement. Without this makeup, his performance does not mean to be out of profession because by his overly emphatic acting style, an arsenal of broad facial expressions, shoulder shrugs, eye rolls, and head tilts, he is also a competent theatrical performer, which is shown in the earlier part of the film. This sudden change implies the stereotype held amongst Broadway audience who are very likely to feel it easier to accept a black jazz singer rather than a white one. What’s more, it is at this moment, when the emotional tug-of-war is going on in Jack as he grapples with the lure of assimilation and his love of and sense of obligation to his Jewish upbringing, that he puts on blackface. When Jack’s mother comes into the room and looks for Jack, she does not even recognize his son, but instead thinks it looks like his shadow, which indicates that she demarcates African Americans and her Jewish ethnicity. Additionally, the sadness Jack feels becomes linked to his transformation into an African American stereotype. In one close up shot, Jack looks sadly in the mirror at himself in blackface, and his reflection dissolves to a vision of his father as cantor. The superimposition of the two images further strengthens the sense of Jewish blackface performance as somehow expressive of an outsider status. Jack is absorbed in the illusion with the haunt of his father’s holy singing as if he hears his father’s calling. Eventually he decides to sing for his father instead of appearing on opening night. After all, in his heart, it’s a call of the ages---the cry of his race.
With the skills in cinematography and mise-en-scene, the film points out historical connections between Jewish Immigrants and African Americans, and even obliquely comments on the connections between Jews and Irish Americans. On the whole, The Jazz Singer endorses Jewish assimilation into whiteness, but not by necessarily denying Jewish identity in the process.
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