GO DOWN, DEATH
US, 1944, 56 minutes, Black and white.
Myra D. Hemmings, Samuel H. James, Spencer Williams.
Directed by Spencer Williams.
Go Down, Death was Williams’ religious film of 1944, from ‘the celebrated Negro author, James Weldon Johnson, of sainted memory’. He had made The Blood of Jesus in 1941. This is much more of a melodrama where a club boss plans to get rid of a devout preacher engaged to his cousin. The preacher has been condemning the club, so the boss sets the preacher up with three women who come into his house to tempt him (sex and alcohol) with two photographers also lurking. The boss’s mother supports the preacher and confronts the boss. She also prays, gazing at her late husband’s picture on the wall (to the accompaniment of ‘Nobody knows the trouble I feel’). The boss threatens her and she collapses and dies. (In the background of much of the film is Schubert’s Ave Maria.) There is talk, as in the previous film, of God’s will, being in God’s hands. At her funeral, people praise her, ‘God’s eye was on Caroline and God’s big heart was touched with pity’. In the aftermath of the funeral and quotations from the book of Revelation (to the accompaniment of ‘A Mighty Fortress is our God’), the boss hears the voice of his conscience challenging him and he goes berserk. He runs into a tree and collapses at ‘the Gates of Hell’. The film has some special effects of Satan devouring a sinner as well as re-creations of last judgment scenes with a finale of ‘Glory, glory, glory…, Merciful and Mighty’.
The theology here is very literal as is the reading of the scriptural texts but both films reveal that African American experience that embraced Christian faith during the slavery era but which still pervades so much of that culture.
1.The work of Spencer Williams and his religious films? The African American background? The target audience? The style of faith, expressions of faith? Music?
2.The black and white photography, the ordinary homes, the church, the bar? Realistic? The musical score?
3.The small budget, the commitment to making this film? The moral parables? The aim for instructing the audience?
4.The focus on death? The opening, the focus on the minister? His sermon and the film preaching?
5.The club, the music, Big Jim as the boss, the people in the club? The contrast with the crowd at church?
6.The minister, the women following him, talking, going into the house, the seductive behaviour, sex, alcohol? Sitting on the desk, the kiss? The preacher and his behaviour, urging them to read the Sermon on the Mount? The photographers, letting themselves in, catching the minister and framing him?
7.Big Jim’s mother, her looking after the minister? His fiancée being her niece? Her confrontation of the people, ousting them? Naming them as devils?
8.The minister, the support from Betty Jean? His edifying words, comment on human nature? His wanting to resign? God’s will and the hand of the Lord?
9.Caroline, her confrontation of her son, saying that she was coloured but not common? That he was common? The strong talk? Her looking at the picture of her dead husband, asking his help? The background of ‘nobody knows the trouble …’? The going to the safe, the background of ‘Ave Maria’?
10.The boss, his wanting to get rid of the minister, framing him? His thugs? The confrontation with his mother, the struggle? Her death?
11.The funeral, the comment on God’s eye being on Caroline, God’s big heart was touched by pity? God coming down to Savannah? The singing of ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’?
12.Jim, the aftermath, going berserk, hearing the voice of conscience? His running, his death?
13.The visual images, the gate of Hell, the Satan devouring a man? The voice? The eschatological images of those who had died? The theme of mercy? The glory of God and God’s mercy?
14.The purpose of the film, overt religion, African American style, participative, the music, the morality?
