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Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” is both a political statement and an in-depth look into the mind of James Baldwin, one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and social critics. Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” is both a political statement and an in-depth look into the mind of James Baldwin. Aside from that, it is a unique and striking cinematic biography with a specific mission: to show America through the eyes of an African-American, scattering shards of hope amid scenes of horror, exasperation, and displeasure.
While the film is constructed largely out of material that was created by its subject (the voice-over narration, read by Samuel L. Jackson, is based on the last, unfinished novel written by Baldwin), it is illustrated in part by documentary and news footage, vintage photos and newspaper clippings, and onscreen text. Although Baldwin appears in the film, we don’t see him very much on screen. It’s understandable that Peck would make this choice; after all, he was one of the few prominent African-American intellectuals who was a regular presence on network television in the 1960s, and from what little we see of those appearances (the highlights include some choice bits from “The Dick Cavett Show”), it’s clear that Peck could have built a satisfying feature around James Baldwin as the camera subject: that’s how authoritative he was.
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However, as the film progresses, this and other decisions become more and more obvious. “I Am Not Your Negro” isn’t interested in providing us with a comprehensive portrait of Baldwin’s life. It is primarily concerned with demonstrating how he perceived and wrote about the world. It accomplishes this with imagination, sensitivity, and passion, all of which are tempered by sorrow.
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Some of Baldwin’s novel’s passages that have been turned into narration take place during the 1960s, with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. serving as watershed moments in the struggle for civil rights. A series of observations and anecdotes, sly asides, and words of wisdom are strung together along this historical clothesline, as Peck attempts to reconcile the gap between what the United States claims to stand for and what it actually does.
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In the novel, we learn about Baldwin’s conflicted, evolving reaction to the Civil Rights movement (including internal debates about violent vs. nonviolent resistance) and interracial relationships (the hero of Baldwin’s novel tells a story about how he and his first serious girlfriend, a white girl, used to leave the site of their trysts separately and sit far apart from one another on subway cars). What Doris Day, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Ray Charles, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte’s carefully crafted images reveal about how white Americans see themselves and others, according to Baldwin, is revealed in his book. The Horatio Alger myth (which he describes as “exactly that,” a myth), capitalism (a way of prioritizing numbers above all else), mainstream entertainment (a narcotic), and the possibility of racial reconciliation are all discussed in his perspective on mid-century American attitudes toward these topics (slim, unless whites come to grips with the full impact of slavery and Jim Crow). In addition, he provides us with snippets of highly personal film criticism, in which he examines films for evidence of the mentality of the culture that produced the film. One of the most memorable scenes is when Baldwin describes a black audience’s reaction to a scene in Stanley Kramer’s interracial buddy film “The Defiant Ones,” in which Tony Curtis’ white chain gang inmate falls off a train and Sidney Poitier’s character leaps off to help him: the crowd yelled at Poitier, “What are you doing? “
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As a result, I believe Peck miscalculates when he attempts to transport us out of the twentieth century and connect many of Baldwin’s observations about his own time to events and cultural developments that occurred after his death. Interspersed among the archival footage and photographs, as well as scenes from classic films, are clips from trashy daytime talk shows and reality television shows, as well as images that allude to the 2008 financial meltdown, the Ferguson uprising, Barack Obama’s election, and the 2016 presidential campaign. These elements do not have a significant negative impact on the film. However, they are successful in breaking the spell Peck has cast. On the other hand, there are instances where Baldwin’s observations are diminished by connecting them too directly to American life in the second decade of the new millennium, thereby undermining their timeless quality. This film, like Baldwin’s writing, will always be relevant, and yet here it is, out of date with its own time.
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It doesn’t matter: Baldwin’s writing voice comes through loud and clear regardless. It was wise to have Jackson read Baldwin’s words aloud in his own voice rather than attempting an impersonation rather than attempting an impersonation. Because of this decision, the work is brought into the spotlight, which is exactly where the spotlight should always be in a film about an artist. Furthermore, it makes intuitive but general connections between Baldwin’s life and Baldwin’s fictionalization of it, without making any claims that are not supported by the text itself.
In addition, transforming Baldwin into a chorus member and occasionally a bystander in a story based on his own life proves to be a brilliant stroke of writing. Onscreen, Peck transforms Baldwin into a witness as well, briefly showing him with politicians and artists but never keeping them up for long, placing him within photo montages of important but sorrowful events (such as King’s funeral), establishing that he was there but never elevating his grief above the grief of others. This is not a portrait of a single individual, James Baldwin, but rather a portrait of the nation about which he wrote, as seen through his eyes. It’s a film that bears witness to a writer who also bears witness to the film.
“I Am Not Your Negro” is currently available for streaming on Amazon and for purchase at a discounted rental rate on digital platforms such as iTunes.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Space Between Us Quiz.
