James Baldwin sharing a few pointers.
One thing that you should never do is to back the person you’re interviewing into a corner; chances are you’ll get bit. Especially if it’s someone like James Baldwin. If you have the privilege of interviewing someone, you make them feel comfortable enough so they talk about whatever they want, after all, they’re the ones giving the answers. Abusing this trust and ambushing someone on the spot with a camera in their face will turn into an ugly scene very quickly indeed.
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970) follows James’ walks through Paris and gaining more insight into his personality and his place in the world. Or well that would’ve been the concept had it been in the hands of a filmmaker who isn’t incredibly patronising. The questions he’s prepared for James were too rigid and focused solely on his literary work, somehow under the illusion that his truest self is reflected in his written words. Why is it that having the man himself in front of you isn’t enough? With the grace of the writer, James handles all of this condescension with ease and provides some marvellously compelling answers about his political thought. His presence is the only saving grace of this documentary. His confidence and prescient words are the life raft which saves this whole film from sinking to the depths of forgetfulness.
Shot around some beautiful and iconic locations in Paris, we see and hear James give word about all the terrible inequities against black people still prevalent in the world today. He represents all the black people who have had to get the fuck out of dodge or else they’d be dead in the morning. A living breathing testimony to the ugliness of a country that drives its citizens out. This bristling conversation with him reveals the deep-seated supremacy that’s still inherent in white folk, ironically coming from the filmmaker himself. Not happy with the interview going his way, the questions he asked not being answered, he becomes defensive and loses his equanimity. By no means am I calling him a vicious racist, but his imperious attitude points to something which is akin to superciliousness.
Nevertheless, James’ calm speech and unwavering words make this an illuminating watch, as enlightening as his literature itself, he doesn’t speak for his work, he speaks for himself.
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