August 2nd. Born this day in history: James Baldwin. Novelist, playwright, activist. When I was a little boy, I remember seeing his work on our bookshelves in the living room. Mom and Dad had books by James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ray Bradbury, Grace Metalious and Harold Robbins on those shelves. My books by Dr. Seuss were on those shelves too. Work by all those authors -- including Dr. Seuss -- was adapted into big screen Hollywood movies. Except for the work of the acclaimed Black author, James Baldwin.
I started reading some of Baldwin's essays when I was in high school. I read A TALE OF TWO CITIES because of James Baldwin. I didn't wait for a teacher to assign it as required reading in a class. I watched James Baldwin in an interview on our local PBS station. He spoke with such passion about how the Charles Dickens classic impressed him in his youth that I just had to read it. To this day, A TALE OF TWO CITIES is a work of literature I love. I was a member of the Rivers Family in South Central Los Angeles. James Baldwin wrote about the Rivers Family in Harlem.
Filmmaker Barry Jenkins makes me want to cry with pride. He made Black American history at the Oscars when LA LA LAND MOONLIGHT was revealed to be the Best Picture Oscar winner. He co-wrote and directed that film. He took home an Oscar for his screenplay. Barry Jenkins took the James Baldwin classic, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, and adapted the lives and love of the Rivers Family into a screenplay. He broke ground as the first person to bring a James Baldwin story to the big screen. Barry Jenkins' work brought him another Oscar nomination in the adapted screenplay category and it made Regina King an Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress of 2018. She played Sharon Rivers. Sharon Rivers is a wise, aware, conflicted and committed parent. Barry Jenkins is one of the few Black directors who guided a Black cast member to an Oscar victory. Brava, Regina King. Bravo, Barry Jenkins.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK. The story is set in New York City in the 1970s. Barry Jenkins directorial style is lyrical and soulful like a jazz tone poem by Duke Ellington. His two young lovers are framed lovingly with warm colors. Young Tish Rivers has fallen in love with Fonny. And he with her. They're not married. Yet, they are committed to each other and she is pregnant.
The Rivers Family celebrates their joy. The way Jenkins moves his camera, the way he feels about his characters, made me think of Jacques Demy's THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964). When you see the young Black couple hold hands romantically and stroll down a city street at night as Fonny holds an umbrella over them in a gentle rain, that scene gave my heart wings. We don't often get the opportunity to portray ourselves that way onscreen.
You're floating along with Tish and Fonny's romance and then...BAM! You're grabbed by the collar and yanked back down to earth with scenes of the 1970s that are achingly relevant today. Fonny becomes another one of that generation of Black men lost in a rigged system. He's jailed for a crime he did not commit. His only crime was that he's Black. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK is about identity, family, love … and it was James Baldwin's declaration that Black lives matter. Regina King as Sharon Rivers -- Lord, have mercy! What a remarkable performance. She deserved that Oscar. If you haven't seen IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, change that.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK is set in the 1970s. The injustice continues, as you know, if you watched Ava DuVernay's WHEN THEY SEE US, her blistering mini-series about the Central Park Five wrongful convictions and long legal struggle that started in 1989.
To hear and see the late James Baldwin speak his brilliant and often scorching words, be sure to see this powerful documentary. Both features can be seen on Amazon Prime Video.
No comments:
Post a Comment