Review: I Am Not Your Negro (Documentary)
"He’s never left us. And yet his popularity has risked flattening some of the most important tensions in his work. The meme-friendly Baldwin quotations adorning our dating profiles and dormitory walls lack self-awareness. The urgency of his thought prevails, but the consciousness-raising sense of antagonism, the resistance to easy takeaways or preordained political credibility, is smoothed over. If you have Baldwin on your bookshelf or quoted on your Facebook page, you’re signifying that you’re already hip to his message: He attests to your hard-won knowledge, not to the fact that you need further education. (We all do.)
Ideally, we’d all remember that a true encounter with Baldwin’s work entails some fear of being put in our place. As I revel at the sight of him coming for you, I ought to be alert to the moment he comes for me: the moment his ideas begin to challenge and enrich me."
This passage, which appears in K. Austin Collins' thorough review of I Am Not Your Negro, clanged around in my head as I gazed upon the opening credits of the documentary earlier this week. My heart rate quickened and I shifted uncomfortably in my theater seat, not out of any concern or fear, but because I truly felt "alert for the moment" that Baldwin was to come for me, as Collins so aptly put it. As I sat in the theater, Baldwin's voice boomed with a loudness that delivered his message in absolute clarity. His cheshire grin dominated the screen as he expertly disarmed all who dared to question or underestimate his intellect. His personality loomed over the theater at all moments. And throughout the entire affair, Baldwin - presented unabashedly - challenged and enriched my soul; and not a moment too late.
Director Raoul Peck toiled on this film for over a decade, weaving together snippets of Baldwin's writings, public appearances, and personal notes to create a work that envelopes the iconic thinker's persona and imbues it with an explicit sense of urgency and import for our current American moment. Presented through Baldwin's perspective on the deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the film is a refutation of the American Dream as presented in mainstream culture. It places the blame for the condition of the United States at the feet of Americans themselves, laying bare the terrorism that is so casually wrecked upon those who do not unerringly serve the White supremacy on which the nation was founded. While this outlook is in no way surprising - it has always been central to Baldwin's forceful and unrelenting image - the package of presentation is ever unique. Even for those who have spent countless hours devouring all the musings that Baldwin produced throughout his life, seeing and hearing so much of that put together in a rousing presentation that feels quite literally thrown at you is an experience that - while difficult to fully appreciate in the moment - is unforgettable.
It is hard to say much more without betraying the clarity of emotion and thought I Am Not Your Negro will leave you with. For those familiar with Baldwin, seeing this film will be a welcomed visit with the man in a wholly different form. For those who are new to him, it will be no less than world shaking. What I can say, however, is this - the perilous reality in which we currently find ourselves is unfamiliar to most of those alive to see it. I, along with a great many others I assume, awaken most mornings with such anxiety and concern that it is hard to know what to do with myself. It can feel difficult to know just what to think of America day-to-day, as feelings of confidence and despair rise and fall unexpectedly. But, if this country is ever to right itself and achieve its stated promise, truth will remain the most important pursuit - and James Baldwin knew truth. Not only did he know it, he furiously fought for it every way he knew how. That fight awaits all of us.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1h 33min
Find showings near you for I Am Not Your Negro here.
