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Reviews
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Makes a fascinating individual seem bland
This film tackles a somewhat overlooked and important voice in American history in examining the work of James Baldwin, an essayist and playwright who perhaps more penetratingly than other, more visible civil rights leaders of his time skewered the shadowy psychology of white America's racial attitudes. "I Am Not Your Negro" highlights several of Baldwin's more forceful observations, notably America's need for an "other," as he tasks Americans to ask ourselves why we need and rely on that othering.
While my personal take on Baldwin's commentary is that his points are alternately illuminating and meanderingly obscure, I was excited to see a film that would give me a greater appreciation for the man and his legacy. I was hoping to gain from the film a deeper insight into Baldwin's writing, motivations, and personal history.
Unfortunately this film disappointed me, as I felt there was little of Mr. Baldwin's personal journey revealed and even less of his writing. The film, like many recent documentaries and biopics that draw from a limited body of source material, relied heavily on still photographs and oblique references to Hollywood films to fill out screen-time. I despise this filmmaking cliche as it tends to divorce the visual elements of the film from the narrative elements.
However in the case of "I Am Not Your Negro," this is almost a moot point, as there does not seem to be much of a narrative arc at all. The film begins with the premise that in the final years of his life, Baldwin was writing a treatment of the assassinated civil rights leaders Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Dr. King. Little more is mentioned throughout the film's 90 minutes of this unfinished work and what became of it, or indeed what other pressures hindered Baldwin in the 1980s.
The movie's best moments invoke archival footage of Baldwin speaking passionately in front of audiences and on talk shows. His uniquely articulate resistance to the idea that he should buy in to a white American value system by making, as he puts it, "a leap of faith," underscores a profound difference in black and white understandings of America. Director Raoul Peck uses clips from John Wayne and Sidney Poitier films rhetorically throughout the film to support this thesis.
"I Am Not Your Negro" however relies too heavily on questionable tangents and fails to coherently communicate what its ultimate message is. I found the film less than compelling, and sadly learned little from watching it I didn't already know.