Reflection and Resistance: James Baldwin and Cinema

September 14–November 16, 2017

This series explores James Baldwin’s encounter with cinema and his contributions to American intellectual life.

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  • James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

  • I Am Not Your Negro

  • The Defiant Ones

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • I Am Not Your Negro

    Raoul Peck
    United States, France, Belgium, Switzerland, 2016
    Thursday, September 14 7 PM
    Introduction by Stephen Best

    Raoul Peck’s acclaimed documentary is an invigorating look at the great writer James Baldwin, and at the fight for civil rights both in the past and now. “An act of provocation and prophecy” (Village Voice).

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  • I Am Not Your Negro

    Raoul Peck
    United States, France, Belgium, Switzerland, 2016
    Sunday, September 17 1:30 PM
    Introduction by Stephen Best

    Raoul Peck’s acclaimed documentary is an invigorating look at the great writer James Baldwin, and at the fight for civil rights both in the past and now. “An act of provocation and prophecy” (Village Voice).

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  • The Defiant Ones

    Stanley Kramer
    United States, 1958
    Thursday, September 21 7 PM
    Introduction by Stephen Best

    Nominated for eight Academy Awards and winner of two, Stanley Kramer’s anti-racist “message” film stars Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as escaped convicts in the deep South.

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  • In This Our Life

    John Huston
    United States, 1942
    Thursday, September 28 7 PM
    Introduction by Damon Young

    Bette Davis delivers what James Baldwin called a “ruthlessly accurate” portrayal of a spoiled, amoral Southern girl who blames her black chauffeur for a fatal accident in this little-seen social drama from John Huston.

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  • James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

    Karen Thorsen
    United States, 1989

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, October 5 7 PM
    Karen Thorsen in Person

    A who’s-who of the African American culturati—including Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and Ishmael Reed—appear in this documentary tracing Baldwin’s trajectory from Harlem to Europe and across the US. “A haunting, beautifully made biography” (Los Angeles Times).

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  • I Am Not Your Negro

    Raoul Peck
    United States, France, Belgium, Switzerland, 2016
    Friday, October 13 4 PM
    Introduction by Stephen Best

    Raoul Peck’s acclaimed documentary is an invigorating look at the great writer James Baldwin, and at the fight for civil rights both in the past and now. “An act of provocation and prophecy” (Village Voice).

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  • The Nine Muses

    John Akomfrah
    United Kingdom, 2011
    Thursday, November 9 7 PM
    Introduction by Stephen Best

    John Akomfrah uses Homer’s Odyssey as a point of departure for this cinematic exploration of migration, exile, alienation, and the definition of home, with the experiences of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s as its base.

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  • Tongues Untied

    Marlon Riggs
    United States, 1989
    Thursday, November 16 7 PM
    Introduction by Damon Young

    “Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act,” Marlon Riggs asserts with his experimental, poetic, erotic, fiercely proud, and highly influential personal documentary. With Richard O. Moore’s 1963 record of James Baldwin’s visit to San Francisco, Take This Hammer

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