Y’all see that tweet with this and the If Beale Street Could Talk score edited over it? Cry...I have to cry.

I could watch this every day.

A 2018 addition to the National Film Registry, the earliest known moving picture depicting African-American sexual intimacy, in which a Black man and Black woman joyously kiss. Any Victorian-era film will be notable if it represents Blackness without racist caricature, but this 1898 document is far greater than just something not-bad. Although the Selig company catalogue describes this as a "burlesque" on 1896's popular The Kiss, any potential comic intentions on the part of the white camera-cranker are gloriously disallowed by the sincere affection of the performers. It is beautiful, so beautiful, and their love is contagious.

[cf. Lencho]

The virgin The Kiss (1896)
- Too much build-up, ultimately anticlimactic
- Awkward and unrealistic positioning of faces
- Man is clearly forcing kiss on woman
- Disgusting moustache getting in the way of everything

v.s.

The chad Something Good - Negro Kiss (1898)
- Gets straight to it, many kisses are exchanged
- Passionate and naturalistic
- Both parties are participating enthusiastically
- Literally calls itself "something good" in the title, boss move

The oldest thing I've seen is no longer so racist!

So enthusiastic and full of life, despite the distance in time and space, it feels....remarkably voyeuristic despite the fact I'm watching a snapshot of the 19th century from the 21st. And they're so enthusiastic and playful and clearly into each other, that, even if this wasn't historically significant, one could learn a thing or two from watching it on repeat.

A Year of Film History Challenge 2020
(watching a little bit of film history month by month, decade by decade)
--
Watched a very nice restoration on Vimeo. While the short does feel slightly staged in the same way portrait photography usually does, there's so much about this that doesn't feel that way, with so much energy, spontaneity, and personality coming across that it makes this couple (who belong to that first generation born after the U.S. Civil War) feel a whole lot less than 120 years removed from us. So great that films like this exist.

Who knew that the sweetest movie kiss ever was filmed 120 years ago?

This is what true love looks like.

It is aw-shucks happy and affectionate and lovable, it really is.

But it wouldn't be me writing if I didn't point out that the freedom to take joy in each other is being relegated to the racial 'other,' behaving in ways that don't correspond to the hidebound and hincty primness of the Irwin/Rice Kiss or other contemporaneous (white) representations.

What if anything that means, y'all can fight over it.

I first saw this more than a year or so ago and my review was never finished so, here I am again with a review. 

I am a fan of the genuine energy in this film. I love the glimpse into the past it provides and yet, I also love how it puts on display just how universal and ‘now’ it feels.

If you need to feel good, and lord knows I did after these past few weeks, give this one a quick watch.

Genuinamente uno de los momentos más puramente felices alguna vez filmado.

Alguns segundos, um casal apaixonado, um beijo, a vida, puro cinema.

Unbelievable. Just, so moving, given the context.

why is this so precious 😭

why do i feel like this is how my parents kisss when they want to make me uncomfortable

Muito fofo

A burlesque on the John Rice - May Irwin kiss in The Kiss (1896)

Eternal Scavenger Hunt Film 175: A film in the national film registry

so i'm passing the time, watching some short films, and I'm trying to avoid anything that will make me cry because I'm nursing a migraine and i thought "oh this looks nice and sweet and won't make me cry" but i guess i forgot that seeing people happy and in love can make me cry too so whoops

anyway this is very sweet

The earliest on-screen kiss involving Black Americans!!

As wholesome, unblemished and beautiful as this is, I can't shake the gut-wrenching feeling that these two wonderful actors might have been freed slaves or had parents who were slaves.....typing this makes me tear up uncontrollably!

A resoundingly huge middle finger to the minstrel shows and other numerous racist caricatures popular at the time and still going on in many ways!

I implore anyone who even cares to read my dumb reviews to give 29 seconds of your time to this indelible piece of art. It's on YouTube, please watch it. As Howard Ratner from Uncut Gems would say: "That's history right here, you understand"

fuck this makes me so so happy words cannot express how genuinely happy this makes me.
this is love, pure and real love.

watched this again because it’s cute as fuck and love is real

you get what it says on the tin