Patrick McGilligan: Self
Quotes
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Nicole London : He took his farming experience. his experiences as a Pullman Porter, and he kind of translated that onto the written page. Then, he kind of took the means to kind of self publish, as well, self publish, self distribute these books.
Patrick McGilligan : Then, he goes all these neighbors, who's he's helped, he goes to the local bankers, and he'd say, "You give me a little money, you sign this, I sell some books, I give you some money back." They all invest in his life story! He turns his first book into what we guess is some kind of bestseller.
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Richard Peña : I think he was someone who looked forward. And, you know, in many ways, the key experience for Micheaux, I believe, was when he worked as a Pullman Porter on the American railroads. Even though they were waiters and sort of cabin people, people who made up rooms, they did, in a sense, mingle with very high class white people and talk to them and get to know them and, I think, Micheaux in that experience said, "If these people can live like this, I can live like this and African Americans can live like this."
Michele Prettyman : Its no surprise to me that someone like Micheaux would, like someone like Malcolm X, their early life, their formative years, be shaped by some degree of working on the train, working on a railroads. That's a defining, sort of, modernist impulse. And so, Micheaux is a part of that. He is a part of this ebb and flow culture and ideas and imagination that the train really embodies.
Patrick McGilligan : He met people. He talked to them. He got books from them. He learned about society, about politics, about entertainment in different cities. It really him a worldly man - much more than a lot of people who spent their lives entirely in the midwest.
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Patrick McGilligan : He had tremendous American spirt of: start over again, let's do it! He preaches idealism and purity and sometimes he's a little tricky over here getting things done any way he can.
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Patrick McGilligan : He took what he could borrow from things that he liked. So, you see scenes in 'Body and Soul' that are very German expressionist, very, very striking, especially when he's doing scenes with nature and windstorms, which he loved - wind. So, he was very sophisticated, sometimes in the lighting and in the composition.
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Patrick McGilligan : He was showing history from the African American point of view and his films are very powerful and modern, in terms of their ideas, in terms of their style.
