Doc Review: Meeting the Man: James Baldwin

Amateur music and narration; such a waste for such a genius—and so short! The camera should have just been turned on Baldwin. Coded racism from the interviewer, referring several times in as many minutes to Baldwin’s disagreeing with him as hostility.

Still giving it five stars because it’s footage of James Baldwin being brilliant, and smiling that smile, and because he said this:

I’ve had a hard life. But my dear, no really, I know it sounds a terrible thing to say—
I would not be a white American for all the tea in China, for all the oil in Texas. I really wouldn’t like to have to live with all those lies.
This is what is irreducible and awful, you the English, you the French, you the West, you the Christians—you can’t help but feel that there is something you can do for me, that you can save me. And you don’t get “no”. That I have endured your salvation so long I can’t afford it any more. Not another moment of your salvation. 
And that I, I, I can save you. I know something about you, and you know nothing about me.
And that is where it really is. It is almost a division of…how can I put it?…a division of labor. He can do some things that you can’t do. You can do some things that he can’t do. I can do some things that neither of you can do. I know I can’t drive a truck, and I can’t run a bank. And I can’t count. And I can’t lead a movement. But I can fuck up your mind.

It’s Black History Month. No one is erasing that. And that is where it really is. May I suggest The Fire Next Time or Giovanni’s Room, two of my favorites?

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Click here to get 30 days of Mubi free and watch this short yourself, just to see him on film.