Did you know that Nope by Jordan Peele referred to a pioneer of cinema, unknown in France, Eadweard Muybridge? We explain the true story behind the sequence of the black jockey of the film…
Warning, this article contains minor spoilers for Nope, centering on events early in the film.
Nope is a film full of references: there are nods to SF like Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind or even ET We can even see a reference to a cult anime.
Another cinephile wink may require some explanation, in this case the black jockey mentioned at the start of the film. Does this refer to a real movie? When does it date back? We tell you more.
“Did you know that the first succession of photos to make up a film was a two-second clip with a black man on a horse?“, launches the character of Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) at the beginning of the film. This line alludes to a very short film that really existed: we owe it to Eadweard Muybridge, a British photographer, who had settled in the United States. United, and specialized in photos of moving animals. His most famous film is titled The Horse in Motionbut these are stills from another film that inspires Nope’s sequence, in this case a slightly older film, dating back to 1883.
What do black cowboys in Hollywood look like?
Like the website Insider recalls, there is a parallel between the story of this photographer and the story reinvented at the beginning of Nope. If the name of the photographer is never mentioned, it does indeed refer to this milestone in the history of cinema. The parallel goes further: in Nope, it is a question of photographing something that had never before been captured in image. It was the same with Muybridge who tried to capture the elusive: to capture the movement of a galloping horse.
According to historians, the film also showed a black horseman. A way to raise another important subject in Hollywood history, that of black cowboys (see our video report above). In the film, this black jockey is called Alistair E. Haywood and is introduced as the first rider in the first moving film. A name invented for the needs of the film, but whose sound is of course reminiscent of the word… Hollywood! The real name of this jockey is unknown.
Beyond the black cowboys, the film Nope, of which we can underline the richness of its themes, questions the sidelining of the black population in the stories about America.
To go further, an animated video on Eadweard Muybridge by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art:
Nope has been in theaters since August 10, 2022.