“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America, and it is not a pretty story. ” – James Baldwin
Number of Times Seen – 1 (10 May 2017)
Brief Synopsis – A rendition of an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin on the state of the African American’s in America who’s words are timeless.
My Take on it – This is a film that I have been interested in seeing for the past few months and unfortunately only got the opportunity now.
The idea of taking a 30 page document and reading it to us along with pictures and videos is a great idea in theory but in practice just doesn’t work as powerfully as one would hope.
It is amazing to listen to some of James Baldwin’s thoughts because much of them are truly timeless and relate to things that happened in the 50’s and 60’s, the late 70’s and 80’s (when it was written) and even now 35+ years after he wrote it.
The biggest problem here is that it gets very tedious and monotonous listening to someone read a manuscript for over 90 minutes.
One would think that by choosing someone like Samuel L. Jackson to read this would make a difference, but it doesn’t really help and I felt myself wanted to doze off even though the words were pretty interesting.
Bottom Line – Very interesting way to make a film but by doing so, it loses much of the impact of the words themselves. Baldwin’s thoughts are amazingly timeless but it can be a big too much to listen for 90 minutes straight to someone reading his words to us (even if that someone is Samuel L. Jackson.)
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – It’s based on an unfinished manuscript. (From IMDB)
Rating – BAFTA Worthy
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