‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Review: Oscar-Nominated Doc Lets James Baldwin’s Words Echo Through 2017
Director Raoul Peck lets the great writer do all the talking, and his observations about race in America remain all too relevant today
Alonso Duralde | February 3, 2017 @ 1:54 PM
Last Updated: February 3, 2017 @ 3:09 PM
Magnolia Pictures
To review Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” feels, in many ways, like gilding the lily: Every word we hear in this Oscar-nominated documentary comes from the great novelist and essayist James Baldwin, and his prose remains so vital, so beautiful, so brutal in the 21st century that there seems little point adding to it.
To review “I Am Not Your Negro,” then, is to urge you to see an extraordinary document; it’s a great work of cinema, yes, but it also addresses the past and the present and the future of this country in a way that every citizen worthy of the name should experience, reflect and discuss.
“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.” That quotation from Baldwin could be the tagline for the film. And while Peck’s work brims over with anger and horror, it is also a work of sweeping poetry. This story still isn’t pretty, but it’s delivered in a captivating and gorgeous manner.
In 1979, Baldwin wrote his agent with an idea for a book called “Remember This House,” which would examine the civil rights struggle in America through Baldwin’s friendships with three key activists, all assassinated: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. That book was never completed, but Baldwin’s letters form the crux of the film. (Bad news for writers everywhere: Not only will most of us never write a book as great as one of Baldwin’s, but we apparently also will never write a book proposal as good, either.)
Samuel L. Jackson narrates from Baldwin’s letters and other writings, and it’s one of the actor’s greatest performances: He never attempts to imitate Baldwin’s singular voice, but he does mirror the rhythms and the cadences of his speech, so that when Peck intercuts between Jackson’s narration and clips of Baldwin speaking on television or to audiences, it’s never an awkward juxtaposition.
Peck visually traverses the line of history, from the slave trade to #BlackLivesMatter, in similar fashion. Centuries apart, the undeniable connection of past and present is front and center, even as the film contains no contemporary interviews or narration. Baldwin’s still-relevant words calmly excoriate America’s white-invented “Negro Problem” as footage of vintage jeering protestors outside an integrated school and photographs of Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice collapse the passage of time into one ongoing horrific moment.
“I Am Not Your Negro” currently sits alongside “13th” and “O.J.: Made in America” among this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary, and it’s worth noting that all three extraordinary films are complementary yet never redundant. There is enough to say about race and racism in America that three movies are but a drop in the bucket on the subject; we are lucky to live at a time when all three of these films can be made, and we are cursed to live at a time when all three of these films had to be made.
Peck’s work is both sad and stirring; it throws down a gauntlet that asks society to do better when it comes to dealing the black experience in this country. (It also, one hopes, challenges another filmmaker to make another work that takes as moving a view of Baldwin’s life as a gay man in the 20th century.)
No movie is going to fix the world, but films like “I Am Not Your Negro” demand accountability from its audience, both on a personal level and as a community of human beings.
Oscars 2017: We Predict Nominations in All 24 Categories (Photos)
TheWrap awards guru Steve Pond expects a whole lot of "La La Land" -- and some surprises
Best Picture
Predicted nominees, in order of probability: "La La Land" "Moonlight" "Manchester by the Sea" "Arrival" "Lion" "Hell or High Water" "Hidden Figures" "Fences"
If there's a ninth nominee: "Hacksaw Ridge"
Best Director
Predicted nominees: Damien Chazelle, "La La Land" Barry Jenkins, "Moonlight" Denis Villeneuve, "Arrival" Kenneth Lonergan, "Manchester by the Sea" David Mackenzie, "Hell or High Water"
Best Actor
Predicted nominees: Casey Affleck, "Manchester by the Sea" Denzel Washington, "Fences" Ryan Gosling, "La La Land" Andrew Garfield, "Hacksaw Ridge" Viggo Mortensen, "Captain Fantastic"
Best Actress
Predicted nominees: Emma Stone, "La La Land" Natalie Portman, "Jackie" Isabelle Huppert, "Elle" Amy Adams, "Arrival" Meryl Streep, "Florence Foster Jenkins"
Best Supporting Actor
Predicted nominees: Mahershala Ali, "Moonlight" Jeff Bridges, "Hell or High Water" Dev Patel, "Lion" Lucas Hedges, "Manchester by the Sea" Hugh Grant, "Florence Foster Jenkins"
Predicted nominees: "Manchester by the Sea" "La La Land" "Hell or High Water" "Captain Fantastic" "The Lobster"
Best Animated Feature
Predicted nominees: "Zootopia" "Kubo and the Two Strings" "My Life as a Zucchini" "The Red Turtle" "Your Name"
Best Documentary Feature
Predicted nominees: "O.J.: Made in America" "Life, Animated" "I Am Not Your Negro" "Cameraperson" "13th"
Best Foreign Language Film
Predicted nominees: "Toni Erdmann" (Germany) "The Salesman" (Iran) "Land of Mine" (Denmark) "My Life as a Zucchini" (Switzerland) "Paradise" (Russia)
Best Original Song
Predicted nominees: "City of Stars" from "La La Land" "How Far I'll Go" from "Moana" "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" from "La La Land" "Letter to the Free" from "13th" "The Rules Don't Apply" from "Rules Don't Apply"
Best Original Score
Predicted nominees: "La La Land" "Moonlight" "Lion" "The BFG" "Nocturnal Animals"
Best Cinematography
Predicted nominees: "La La Land" "Moonlight" "Arrival" "Silence" "Jackie"
Best Editing
Predicted nominees: "La La Land" "Hacksaw Ridge" "Arrival" "Moonlight" "Manchester by the Sea"
Best Costume Design
Predicted nominees: "Jackie" "La La Land" "Florence Foster Jenkins" "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" "The Dressmaker"
Best Production Design
Predicted nominees: "La La Land" "Jackie" "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" "Hail, Caesar!" "The Handmaiden"
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Predicted nominees: "Deadpool" "Star Trek Beyond" "A Man Called Ove"
Predicted nominees: "La La Land" "Hacksaw Ridge" "Arrival" "Rogue One" "Deepwater Horizon"
Best Visual Effects
Predicted nominees: "The Jungle Book" "Rogue One" "Deepwater Horizon" "Arrival" "Kubo and the Two Strings"
Best Documentary Short
From what I have seen and heard, the ones to watch in the documentary-short category are "The White Helmets," "Joe's Violin," "Close Ties" and "4.1 Miles" at the top of the list, with "Watani: My Homeland" and "Extremis" in the running as well.
Best Live Action Short
I wouldn't bet against Kim Magnusson's "Silent Nights" since the Danish producer has been nominated five times and won twice. There's also buzz behind the postapocalyptic "Graffiti," the Student Oscar winner "Nocturne in Black," the comic "Timecode" (with a late-minute twist, which Oscar voters love) the Hungarian childhood tale "Sing" and Selim Azzazi's "Ennemis Interieurs," about a man caught in a French terrorist investigation.
Best Animated Short
Two are from Disney/Pixar ("Piper" and "Inner Workings"), though neither is among those companies' best, while "Borrowed Time" was made by moonlighting Pixar artists. Viewers can change the perspective in "Pearl" by 360 degrees, but the technology might outweigh the charming story. Academy voters like hand-drawn animation, which could help "Once Upon a Line," and they like personal stories, which covers "Pear Cider and Cigarettes." But also look out for "Blind Vaysha," which has a spectacular look, and "The Head Vanishes," about a woman suffering from dementia.
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TheWrap awards guru Steve Pond expects a whole lot of “La La Land” — and some surprises
TheWrap awards guru Steve Pond expects a whole lot of "La La Land" -- and some surprises
