James Baldwin

James Baldwin

Born: August 2, 1924
Died: December 1, 1987
in Harlem, New York, USA
James Arthur Baldwin was an African-American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son, explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable tensions.

Movies for James Baldwin...

James Baldwin Abroad
Title: James Baldwin Abroad
Character: Himself
Released: February 3, 2023
Type: Movie
Showcasing three short films by American writer James Baldwin, wherein he muses about race, sexuality and civil rights, among other topics, in Istanbul, Paris and Great Britain.
bee
Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues
Title: Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues
Character: Self (archive Footage)
Released: October 27, 2022
Type: Movie
An intimate and revealing look at the world-changing musician, presented through a lens of archival footage and never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations. This definitive documentary honors Armstrong's legacy as a founding father of jazz, one of the first internationally known and beloved stars, and a cultural ambassador of the United States.
bee
Madonna: Madame X
Title: Madonna: Madame X
Character: Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Released: September 23, 2021
Type: Movie
Filmed in Lisbon, Portugal, the film captures the pop icon’s rare and rapturous tour performance, hailed by sold out theatrical audiences worldwide. The unprecedented intimate streaming experience will take viewers on a journey as compelling and audacious as Madonna’s fearless persona, Madame X, a secret agent traveling around the world, changing identities, fighting for freedom and bringing light to dark places.
bee
i ran from it and was still in it
Title: i ran from it and was still in it
Character: Self (voice) (archive footage)
Released: January 28, 2021
Type: Movie
I ran from it and was still in it poetically interweaves personal family memories with original and found footage to offer a more complex portrait of familial loss and separation. Kae wades through deep emotions surrounding the death of his father and the sudden relocation of his children, repurposing intimate family scenes from his personal archive by pairing them with online media from a variety of sources to explore how the autobiographical model can potentially extend beyond the personal.
bee
De Cabral a George Floyd: Onde Arde o Fogo Sagrado da Liberdade
Title: De Cabral a George Floyd: Onde Arde o Fogo Sagrado da Liberdade
Character: Self
Released: September 11, 2020
Type: Movie
Through clippings, the film draws a narrative line between the construction of racism in Brazil and the United States, having as base the European invasion of the continent, police violence, the genocide of the black people, the massacre of indigenous peoples, religious violence, the criminalization of funk music, structural racism in art and education, the importance of quota policy and the need urgent historical repair as a commitment by the Brazilian state to the black people.
bee
Title: Explained
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: May 23, 2018
Type: TV
This documentary series, made in partnership with Vox, explain some of the world's current trends, from politics, to science to pop culture.
bee
Mr. SOUL!
Title: Mr. SOUL!
Character: Self (archival footage)
Released: April 27, 2018
Type: Movie
On the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, one fearless black pioneer reconceived a Harlem Renaissance for a new era, ushering giants and rising stars of black American culture onto the national television stage. He was hip. He was smart. He was innovative, political, and gay. In his personal fight for social equality, this man ensured the Revolution would be televised. The man was Ellis Haizlip. The Revolution was soul!
bee
Title: Bobby Kennedy for President
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: April 27, 2018
Type: TV
Historic footage and leading voices of the era examine the "Bobby Phenomenon" of the 1960s and the legacy of the man who helped redefine the country.
bee
Target: St. Louis Vol. 1
Title: Target: St. Louis Vol. 1
Character: Archive Footage
Released: January 1, 2018
Type: Movie
TARGET ST. LOUIS Vol. 1© tells the story of how the United State Military conducted secret chemical testing on citizens of St. Louis's Northside. Told through the eyes of the survivors who bravely share their experiences of being unwitting test subjects. Long before the current scandal of lead poisoning of the water supply of Flint, Michigan, the United States Army conducted secret experiments on unknowing residents of northern St. Louis using toxic chemicals. The predominantly African American residents of northern St. Louis are the focus of this film. "Target: St Louis Vol. 1" shares their disturbing story of how these Cold War experiments occurred and the film examines the actions of the US Military that extended beyond the guarantees of public safety promised to US citizens by the Constitution.
bee
I Am Not Your Negro
Title: I Am Not Your Negro
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: February 3, 2017
Type: Movie
Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.
bee
The Madding Crowd
Title: The Madding Crowd
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: February 1, 2017
Type: Movie
"A great many conundrums." An assemblage of found footage.
bee
A Person Is More Important Than Anything Else
Title: A Person Is More Important Than Anything Else
Character: Himself (Archival Footage)
Released: January 1, 2014
Type: Movie
"A person is more important than anything else…," is driven by the cadence and intonation of James Baldwin’s voice, for Baldwin was also an orator whose delivery was almost as forceful as his ideas. Artist Hank Willis Thomas weaves various audio, images, and video together including news clips, speeches, and interviews, in a fluid-moving, digital stream of consciousness that connects Baldwin’s 20th century discourse with the concerns and urgencies of the 21st, highlighting issues of race, gender, class and sexuality. Commissioned in 2014 by NY Live Arts for the Year of James Baldwin, this multi-channel installation brings history to the fore, inspiring us to re-imagine our relationship to the contemporary moment.
bee
Public Speaking
Title: Public Speaking
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 22, 2010
Type: Movie
A feature-length documentary starring Fran Lebowitz, a writer known for her unique take on modern life. The film weaves together extemporaneous monologues with archival footage and the effect is a portrait of Fran's worldview and experiences.
bee
The James Baldwin Anthology
Title: The James Baldwin Anthology
Released: May 1, 2003
Type: Movie
The James Baldwin Anthology consists of internationally known writer James Baldwin's historic speech at UC Berkeley in 1979, his answers in a dialogue with Malcom X in the ’60s, and series of original mixed media images done by Claire Burch as a memorial after his death in 1987. Following this material is an additional half hour which contains an interview with the late Professor Erskine Peters who was host to Jimmy at this time, and footage of a session at Cody’s Bookstore in Berkeley, California where author David Lemming reads from his biography of Jimmy and describes Baldwin’s sad and funny efforts to bring a close friend, the painter Beauford Delaney, from a psychiatric unit in France to Turkey where Jimmy was living at the time.
bee
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
Title: James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: August 14, 1989
Type: Movie
James Baldwin was at once a major 20th century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy.
bee
The Statue of Liberty
Title: The Statue of Liberty
Character: Self - Writer
Released: October 26, 1985
Type: Movie
For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this lyrical, compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself. Featuring rare archival photographs, paintings and drawings, readings from actual diaries, letters and newspapers of the day, the fascinating story of this universally admired monument is told. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, The Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life. Nominated for both the Academy Award ® and the Emmy Award ®, The Statue of Liberty received the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle, the Christopher Award and the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.
bee
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Title: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Released: March 3, 1982
Type: Movie
Renowned Black writer James Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting with his trademark brilliance and insight on the passage of more than two decades. From Selma and Birmingham and Atlanta; to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, with Chinua Achebe; and back north for a visit to Newark with Amiri Baraka, Baldwin lays bare the fiction of progress in post–Civil Rights America, wondering “what happened to the children” and those 'who did not die, but whose lives were smashed on Freedom Road'.
bee
Title: I Remember Harlem
Character: self
Released: February 1, 1981
Type: TV
William Miles’s landmark epic documents the early settlement of the Village of Harlem in the 17th century to the specter of urban renewal and redevelopment in the 1970s. The film chronicles the centuries of change and political and artistic expression that has made this complex hamlet the capital of urban America.
bee
James Baldwin: From Another Place
Title: James Baldwin: From Another Place
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1973
Type: Movie
In Istanbul, American writer James Baldwin muses about race, the American fascination with sexuality, insights into his interrupted writing decade in the country, the generosity of the Turks, and how being in another country, in another place, forces one to re-examine well-established attitudes about modern society.
bee
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris
Title: Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris
Character: Self
Released: May 5, 1971
Type: Movie
In 1970, a British film crew set out to make a straightforward literary portrait of James Baldwin set in Paris, insisting on setting aside his political activism. Baldwin bristled at their questions, and the result is a fascinating, confrontational, often uncomfortable butting of heads between the filmmakers and their subject, in which the author visits the Bastille and other Parisian landmarks and reflects on revolution, colonialism, and what it means to be a Black expatriate in Europe.
bee
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
Title: King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: March 24, 1970
Type: Movie
Constructed from a wealth of archival footage, the documentary follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1955 to 1968, in his rise from regional activist to world-renowned leader of the Civil Rights movement. Rare footage of King's speeches, protests, and arrests are interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by heartfelt testimonials by some of Hollywood's biggest stars.
bee
Baldwin's Nigger
Title: Baldwin's Nigger
Character: Himself
Released: July 12, 1968
Type: Movie
James Baldwin and Dick Gregory discuss the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s Great Britain.
bee
Title: The Dick Cavett Show
Character: Self - Guest
Released: June 6, 1968
Type: TV
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks.
bee
Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley
Title: Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley
Character: Himself
Released: June 12, 1965
Type: Movie
The Cambridge Union Society debates the motion "Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?" on its 150th anniversary. David Heycock and James Baldwin argue the Affirmative. Jeremy Burford and William F. Buckley argue the Negative.
bee
Take This Hammer
Title: Take This Hammer
Character: Self
Released: February 4, 1964
Type: Movie
Take This Hammer features KQED's mobile film unit following author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he's driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African American community.
bee
James Baldwin, A Stranger In The Village
Title: James Baldwin, A Stranger In The Village
Character: Self
Released: October 11, 1962
Type: Movie
James Baldwin, a stranger in a Swiss village in 1962, reflects on ordinary and universal racism.