James Baldwin and Film
The great writer was a great writer of film criticism and very nearly could have been a great writer of films themselves.
I love film. James Baldwin loved film. And I love James Baldwin.
In a recent preview for a film series at the Barbican in London, The Guardian recapped some of Baldwin's criticism but also some of his close calls with the creative side of things as well. It was inspired by his personal essay-memoir The Devil Finds Work.
Lanre Bakare
I loved the dek for the piece:
He pitched slave-ship dramas to Ingmar Bergman, cast Marlon Brando as a bisexual man and wrote a Malcolm X screenplay that horrified the FBI. Why was this cinephile spurned by Hollywood?
I mean, how great does that sound? Think of all the cinema we missed out on! Ingmar Bergman's slave-ship drama?! Marlon Brando as Guillaume in Giovanni's Room?! Baldwin's take on Malcolm X?! Ahh, so much potential.
After reading the story, I pulled out my copy of The Price of the Ticket, the collection of Baldwin's nonfiction from 1948 to 1985, which contains The Devil Finds Work.
I just love how much he loved film, loved this line from the piece:
Baldwin scholar Caryl Phillips said that while literature was his biggest love, “Baldwin discovered the cinema before he discovered books, and he never forgot the impact that these early movies had upon him.”