“History is not the past, it is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” – James Baldwin
I Am Not Your Negro is a film both in and out of time; its subject is confined to a specific era but its scope reaches beyond those years in both directions. It was made and screened during a tumultuous election cycle that saw divides deepen across racial lines, to a point not seen in decades. Having now reached its theatrical release, it is all the more powerful and painful in our unfortunate new paradigm. Director Raoul Peck announces his political intentions from the beginning, preparing the viewer for an immersion in racial discourse, the likes of which have seldom if ever been committed to film.
I Am Not Your Negro is structured as an interesting thought experiment; to be a posthumous completion of Baldwin‘s unfinished book “Remember This House” and also an examination of the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Through Baldwin, the film offers us a more personal lens through which to view some of history’s biggest heroes and articulators of the oppressed. But that’s really a loose structure, as its larger focus is to demonstrate that Baldwin‘s times are our times.
Where we might expect black-and-white footage of Montgomery or sit-ins, we get smartphone shot scenes from Ferguson and elsewhere. Baldwin is not taught in elementary school alongside his more famous civil-rights counterparts, and this film seeks to correct that oversight, replacing him in the context not only as a staunch defender of human rights, but as one of the foremost philosophers of race. This was true in his day, but to the mainstream, at least, it is a fact diluted by time; one memorable archival clip has him appearing alongside King and X in a televised interview on the schools of thought for racial justice in America.
This is heavy and heady subject matter, and the film has a presentation to match. In I Am Not Your Negro, there is little to “enjoy”, but it is not a film without its pleasures.
Montage and Mash-Up
Peck doesn’t merely illustrate Baldwin‘s writing, but rather creates a visual poetry that offers heightened commentary in conversation with the narration. There are no interviews that might color the way we perceive Baldwin; the director is in full control, presenting his film as something of an essay co-authored by its subject. Though Baldwin surely never spoke about Iron Man or Pinhead from Hellraiser, the visual of their bobbleheads standing shoulder to shoulder with one of King under the author’s prose creates a startling and contemplative effect. With sequences like this, the film could have justifiably been nominated for best editing.
The film makes use of a variety of material, such as news footage, FBI documents, archival news clips, and scenes from Hollywood movies, but those of Baldwin himself either on television or in lectures are easily the most arresting. He speaks with a remarkable humanity, yet unmistakable strength. His words are specific in intent and delivered with a cadence that makes it sound remarkably modern for having been uttered half a century ago.
It is almost a shame to return to Samuel L. Jackson‘s narration of Baldwin‘s words, even with a noticeably understated performance from such a famously cantankerous voice. Those segments are by all means done well, supported by an affecting score to match Jackson‘s tone, but it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to juxtapose an actor’s interpretation of Baldwin with the man himself, though probably unavoidable given the nature of centering a film on an author.
That is an important distinction to make; that I Am Not Your Negro is centered around Baldwin rather than being about him. This is no bio-doc, but rather a deft use of an artist’s public life and work to comment upon race and representation (though it doesn’t hurt that Baldwin’s writings are partly autobiographical). In doing so, Peck is able to make Baldwin not only a time traveler, but an effective moral compass of our country that, though he did not live to see, has unfortunately changed little from his experiences. In doing so, the viewer can be left feeling hopelessly trapped in the past, forever doomed to repeat it.
Intertextuality
Baldwin was a philosopher, not solely a civil rights activist, and he had much to say about media. Consequently, this is a film that uses films as a weapon, illustrating how they have perpetuated narratives that have shaped the perceptions Americans have of one another. These movies, particularly Westerns, are a whitewash of history, serving to replace genocide in the collective memory with the slaying by white men of deserving individuals whose skin looked like Baldwin‘s. Through them it was impressed upon him that his country was his enemy. By splicing in clips from such films, Peck seeks to halt that narrative in its tracks, turning the films against their masters in a radical decontextualization and presenting them through Baldwin‘s lens.
Throughout I Am Not Your Negro, Baldwin speaks about the visceral and very real impact films of the time had on his consciousness and ideas about America. With this film, Peck allowed Baldwin to return the favor, leaving an indelible mark certainly on documentaries, but also the ways in which classic films are read.
A Call to Action
Unlike some docs centered on criminally overlooked figures, I Am Not Your Negro doesn’t forgive you if you have little familiarity with Baldwin; for instance his sexuality is only brought up in passing. Rather, it plants a seed in the form of his philosophies and character, and puts the honus on the viewer to continue the education on their own.
I Am Not Your Negro is a film offering hard truths and a blueprint for reconfiguring our national consciousness, imploring us to take responsibility for this country and change it. “Nothing can be changed until it is faced”, Baldwin said. The need to bring back a man from 50 years ago is disheartening, but it’s almost as if Baldwin is answering a cry for help, as he did in the ’60s when he felt compelled to return to the States from Paris.
The cry is for the country to once and for all internalize Baldwin‘s assertion that “the story of the negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story”. Baldwin, from the past and through the film, is pleading with us to look at ourselves and practice introspection via extropection, looking at “the other” only so that we can realize we are the same. Only then can we actually even begin the work of making America “great”, as the need for this film implies, for the first time.
There is far more to be said about this film than one review will permit; what are your thoughts?
I Am Not Your Negro opened to a limited release in the US in December 2016 and will expand on February 3. All international release dates can be found here.
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