I Am Not Your Negro is an engrossing documentary on James Baldwin, brilliant writer and activist who unfortunately died too soon - in the mid 1980s. The film is combination of his television interviews (with Dick Cavett and others), historical footage, and movie clips (including some Sidney Poitier and Doris Day movies that contrast the white and black experience on film during this period) from the 1960s through the 1970s. There is narration by Samuel L. Jackson, who reads the words of an unfinished manuscript by Baldwin. All of the compiled interview clips are definite highlights. Baldwin is very candid and honest about the real attitudes black Americans of the time, and how for example the media and Hollywood were not accurate depictions of real life. In one segment, the film The Defiant Ones is analyzed, and Baldwin talks about how he and others felt that in real life, the black fugitive would have and should have escaped and fended for himself but instead he's shown befriending and helping the other white fugitive. It made me think about that film in another light.
The film also shows clips of 1960s demonstrations and interviews that included hollywood celebrities like Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte and Charlton Heston. Heston is usually dismissed as a racist and right-wing nut and in his later years because his rapid gun activism didn't win him universal favor. His early involvement with civil rights movement is typically forgotten. In Heston's biography In the Arena he talks about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement in the '60s, and then talks about what happened once he became president of the Screen Actors Guild. Martin Luther King Jr met with him to ask him about the lack of people of color in the union and in technical fields in general. Heston explained how he felt he couldn't do much of anything. Dr. King then met with members of other film unions and eventually persuaded them to allow people of color; there had been an rule in place where only children of the members of SAG could be admitted to technical unions.
In August of 1963 King lead a March on Washington which welcomed delegates from Hollywood. Heston was one of those who came and who gave a presentation; in the book, he mentions that his statement to the press was written by James Baldwin (Heston calls him "Jimmy" in the book and describes him as if the reader knows nothing about him). Heston was upset because he wanted to write his own speech, but ultimately praised Baldwin for his writing skill.
After seeing this I Am Not Your Negro, I wanted to read more of Baldwin's work, and have begun to read Giovanni's Room, The Fire Next Time, and Go Tell It On the Mountain, which deals with religion. It's so fascinating to me that Baldwin had an early interest and exposure to churches and gospel music, which he often writes about, reflecting on the spiritual lives of people in society. I wonder what he might think of the film Get Out, which delves into the manipulation of the mind. And often what he would say about today's cultural landscape? His voice lives on and speaks to us today. The documentary feels so contemporary. Read Bobby Rivers' post on both of these films,