Unfinished work

James Baldwin’s vision of America is brought to life in ‘I am Not Your Negro’

Three documentaries from 2016, separately produced, worked as a powerful trilogy about race in America. It’s no surprise they were all nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award. What’s particularly intriguing, though, is that each takes a look at race from very distinct angles.

Director Ezra Edelman’s sprawling achievement “O.J.: Made in America” looks at race from a cultural perspective, examining the societal fallout of racial injustice. The view of Ava DuVernay’s “13th” is historic, drawing a legal and systemic through-line from the 13th Amendment to the present. 

But the third film, Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro,” has perhaps the most unexpected filter: the iconic.

Peck crafts his film through two iconic voices: the writings of James Baldwin and the voice of Samuel L. Jackson. Regrettably unknown to many born after his time, James Baldwin was a gay African-American intellectual firebrand of the Civil Rights movement. A writer of novels, plays, poems, and essays, Baldwin was also an outspoken speaker and social critic. While Dr. King and Malcolm X took to the streets, Baldwin’s righteous, impatient eloquence sparked the attention of academic, elite, and media circles.

“I Am Not Your Negro” takes Baldwin’s great, unfinished work—a 30-page treatment for “Remember This House,” a book billed as telling the story of America through the lives of Baldwin’s three murdered friends: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers—and publishes it in cinematic form.

“I want these three lives,” Baldwin wrote, “to bang against and reveal each other, as in truth they did.” 

Baldwin passed with the book never having evolved past the treatment stage. 

Now, nearly 40 years later, Raoul Peck has taken that treatment, a personal screed filled with passion, lament, prophecy, and doubt, and has given it life through Samuel L. Jackson’s nearly unrecognizable world-weary voice. It’s set against archival footage, all intercut with some of Baldwin’s most notable speeches and television appearances of the time. The result is both contemplative and confrontational, resurrecting Baldwin from the grave (along with seminal moments of the era, both gruesome and forgotten) in arresting, timely fashion.

Peck’s brilliant visual stroke is his emphasis on 20th Century racial iconography. Certainly his inspirations of King, X, and Evers represent that, but those martyrs are merely a springboard for Baldwin to let loose his broiling thoughts. His articulate orations are contextualized through a whole history of racial icons, from old advertisements (e.g. Aunt Jemima) to movies (Sidney Poitier) to music stars (Sammy Davis, Jr.), not just Civil Rights marches.

In stark contrast, we also see the depiction of whites in early-to-mid century pop culture. These representations not only reflected divisions and stereotypes, but codified them as normal. And yet, seeing archconservative Charlton Heston with archliberal Harry Belafonte uniting side-by-side in the fight for justice, we’re also given a vision of solidarity to which our own times must rise. 

Blatant hate-filled speech or violence was not required for someone like Baldwin to feel marginalized. Watching Westerns in which white heroes took vengeance upon non-white villains induced anxiety in Baldwin as a boy, about what his place in a white culture might be. 

Even media with innocent intentions could strike fear because of its representations. Consequently, when Baldwin has cruel words for the likes of Gary Cooper and Doris Day, his harsh ire may seem disproportionate, but it came from a formative place that Peck’s iconic focus helps us to understand. Peck takes Baldwin’s writings and speeches from being academic, or merely personal, to universal. His story is the African-American story, and it’s the story of America itself.                                  

There is no additional commentary here from current thinkers; every thought expressed is directly Baldwin’s, verbatim. His thoughts from nearly a half-century ago, unchanged nor added to, still resonate with profound relevance. Baldwin was asking questions we still have to answer.

“I Am Not Your Negro” opens Friday, Feb. 24 at Circle Cinema with a discussion featuring guest speakers Robert Jackson and Hannibal Johnson following the first screening.

For more from Jeff, read his review of “The Comedian.”