He was the writer and activist whose work paved the way for both the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement, a rigorously moral, ruthlessly intellectual and disarmingly funny pundit, novelist, essayist and journalist whose impact on American - and global - culture is incalculable. Now, to mark the 100th anniversary of James Baldwin’s birth, The Lexi presents a series of feature films, documentaries and little-seen shorts exploring the life of an extraordinary thinker and the remarkable body of work he left behind.
Born out of wedlock in Harlem, New York in 1924, James Baldwin would grow up in poverty, one of nine children - a backstory that he would mine extensively in his writing, notably his widely praised debut novel, 1953’s Go Tell it on the Mountain. That book would be written in Paris, where Baldwin settled at age 24, having found life in the US impossible both as a black man and a homosexual. Throughout the 1950s he would publish widely in magazines such as Esquire, Harper’s and The New York Times Magazine, while working on further novels including the groundbreaking gay romance Giovanni’s Room, published in 1956.
Baldwin’s time in Paris is explored in the first of our centenary events, on 5th September. James Baldwin Abroad features two rare shorts consisting of lively interviews with the author in Paris, Istanbul and London, alongside rare out-take footage provided by the Harvard Film Archive - film clips that you won’t get to see anywhere else. Like every other event in the season, the screening will be followed by an audience discussion hosted by Charmaine Simpson, founder of the Black History Studies project, and writer and filmmaker Hakeem Kazeem.
Catch JAMES BALDWIN ABROAD at The Lexi on Thu 05 Sep at 19:00
Our second screening, on 12th September, is the 1982 documentary James Baldwin: I Heard it Through The Grapevine, in which the writer looks back on his involvement in the civil rights movement, and specifically the time he spent travelling through the American South in the late 1950s. Typically clear-eyed and unsentimental, Baldwin asks the vital question: how much has really changed?
Catch I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE at the Lexi on Thu 12 Sep at 19:00
Our third screening, on 19th September, is a work of wondrous fiction: If Beale Street Could Talk, the 2018 adaptation of Baldwin’s 1974, scripted and directed by Moonlight director and Oscar winner Barry Jenkins. A non-linear tale of romance, devotion, racial strife and hardship in 1970s New York, the film is the most succesful adaptation to date of one of Baldwin’s novels.
Catch IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK at The Lexi on Thu 19 Sep at 19:00
Our final screening, on 26th September, is an unclassifiable masterpiece. Released in 2016, I Am Not Your Negro is at once a documentary, a literary adaptation and a soaring tribute to the power of Baldwin’s work, exhuming his last, unfinished book - a salute to fallen civil rights leaders intended to be titled Remember This House - and using that as a jumping-off point to explore not just Baldwin’s life and work, but those of his heroes, men like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. Featuring extensive footage of Baldwin as his most fiery and loquacious, it’s an absolutely riveting watch.
Catch I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO at The Lexi on Thu 26 Sep at 19:00
James Baldwin passed away from stomach cancer in 1987; he died in France but was buried in Hartsdale, near New York. And although his profile may have dipped in the later years of his life, in the decades since his influence has spread inexorably, thanks in part to films like those in our season, but more importantly to the fact that all the issues Baldwin wrote and spoke about - injustice, inequality, civil rights, social justice - have only become more pressing in the 21st century. More than ever, we need his forensic intellect, his keen sense of justice, and his disarming sense of humour.
Tom Huddleston
Author & Film Journalist
https://www.tomhuddleston.co.uk/
This special programme has been made possible with support from Film London and funding from the BFI Film Audience Network. We are delighted to have co-programmed this season with our regular collaborator Charmaine Simpson of Black History Studies.
With thanks to the Harvard Film Archive.
