Overall Rating
 Awesome: 92.31%
Worth A Look: 7.69%
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2 reviews, 1 rating
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I Am Not Your Negro |
by Rob Gonsalves
"The other troublemaking Baldwin."

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A recurring image in "I Am Not Your Negro," a wounded but finally hopeful documentary, is of forward movement â street lights or palm trees passing by from the POV of a carâs passenger, and so on. It expresses, I think, the state of mind of its wounded but finally hopeful subject, the writer James Baldwin.In 1980, Baldwin signed a contract to write a book, Remember This House, about his friends Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, all martyrs to the civil-rights cause. In 1987, Baldwin died, having completed just thirty pages. I Am Not Your Negro uses that text, and others from Baldwinâs public and private writing, to construct the story of a manâs soul under lifelong pressure from living in a racist society.
Despite its forward motion, the movie flits back and forth in time, making the point that Baldwinâs concerns in the â50s and â60s are, if anything, more relevant today. Things have changed in some ways, not in others. Baldwin refused black responsibility for âthe race problemâ â he thought that the âproblemâ was created by white people and that they needed to own it. To the extent that whites have failed to assume responsibility for the systemic racism that benefits us, much of the tension prevalent in Baldwinâs prime is still very much with us.
In an intimate voice approaching a whisper, Jackson reads Baldwinâs diamond-sharp words. A multiple outcast, Baldwin was gay as well as black. Conceivably, he could find himself among fellow black men who would condemn his sexuality, and find himself among fellow gay men who hated his race. Itâs no wonder, then, that Baldwin often wore what I would call a sad yet sardonic expression. His consciousness was unavoidably ironic and also informed, or warped, by the highly combustible tropes of the Hollywood movies of his youth. The movie takes the opportunity to interrogate Hollywoodâs culpability in American racism, leading up to what I considered the single discordant element: cutting directly from footage of Doris Day emoting to a stark photo of a lynching victim. Itâs mean and uncalled-for; it grates aesthetically and morally. Yes, Baldwin did call Day and Gary Cooper âtwo of the most grotesque appeals to innocence the world has ever seen,â but I mean, câmon.
Otherwise, the filmâs critique of American culture and society, following Baldwinâs lead, is more than fair (including Baldwinâs revulsion at such cinematic Uncle Toms as Stepin Fetchit â although that performer has since been re-evaluated). The Haitian director Raoul Peck stitches the timelines and footage together smoothly â the result is an engaging riff on Baldwinâs themes. Itâs the opposite of dry and academic; the style is jazzy and allusive, with a strong mix of movie clips. Baldwinâs point about Hollywood is that one of the ways you learn a societyâs nature is by looking at the stories they tell themselves about themselves.
So what story does I Am Not Your Negro tell? Itâs not strictly a biographical piece; Peck assumes you know who Baldwin was and why he managed to rub elbows with so many African-Americans of note, serving as a âwitnessâ more than taking direct action. Itâs not a balm in frightening times; it endorses Baldwinâs thesis that the American problem must be faced. It brings some lesser-known Baldwinisms to a larger audience, and may lead people to his books and essays. (Maybe begin with The Fire Next Time, a true classic that influenced Ta-Nehisi Coatesâ Between the World and Me among others.)It begins with the concept Baldwin had of a book about Evers, King and Malcolm, and ends up irising outward to take in the world that formed them, held them aloft for a while, and then took them.
link directly to this review at http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=30930&reviewer=416 originally posted: 01/23/17 14:48:07
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2016 Toronto International Film Festival For more in the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2016 New York Film Festival For more in the 2016 New York Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2016 Chicago International Film Festival For more in the 2016 Chicago International Film Festival series, click here.
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USA 03-Feb-2017 DVD: 02-May-2017
UK N/A
Australia 03-Feb-2017 DVD: 02-May-2017
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