is as good as ever, but I havent actually seen any of the movies he talks about, My failing not his. Η συλλογή αποτελείται από προσωπικές αναλύσεις ταινιών, γνωστών κι αγαπημένων ως επί το πλείστον, υπό το πρίσμα της φυλετικής πολιτικής της Αμερικής και της εκτίμησής της από τον συγγραφέα. Ο Baldwin προσφέρει ένα παράθυρο όχι μόνο στον υπόρρητο ρατσισμό των αμερικανικών ταινιών αλλά ακόμη καταδεικνύει τις αυταπάτες και την εξαπάτηση εκ μέρους των κινηματογραφικών έργων, όντας συγχρόνως υπέρμαχος της άποψης "The language of the cameras is the language of our dreams",
Από το sitelinkGuess Who's Coming to Dinner ως το sitelinkThe Exorcist, ο συγγραφέας ασκεί δριμύτατη κριτική στην απόσταση των όσων παρουσιάζει η εκάστοτε ταινία από την πραγματικότητα, στην αύξηση αντί της μείωσης του προβληματισμού κι εφησυχασμού των λευκών και της απόγνωσης και οργής των μαύρων, Κι όμως, παρά τον καγχασμό, ο Baldwin παραδέχεται πως
no matter how inept one must judge this film to be, . . I still do not wish to be guilty of the gratuitous injustice of seeming to impute base motives to the people responsible for its existence.
Επί παραδείγματι, και ως ενίσχυση της άποψης πως οι ταινίες μεταδίδουν χωρίς ουσιαστικά να αντιμετωπίζουν την αγωνία των ανθρώπων που βρίσκονται παγιδευμένοι σε μια κατάσταση, η κριτική της ταινίας sitelinkLawrence of Arabia γίνεται πάνω στη βάση της έλλειψης αναγνώρισης του δεδομένου πως η Βρετανία σκόπιμα χρησιμοποιούσε και στήριζε μια αραβική εξέγερση για να ολοκληρωθεί η αποσυναρμολόγηση της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, O Baldwin θεωρεί τραγικό κομμάτι της ιστορίας των εξαναγκασμό προκειμένου να μετατραπεί ο κόσμος σε καθρέφτισμά τους, βλέποντας πως αυτός ο μεσσιανισμός
illustrates the dilemma of all the civilizing, or colonizing powers, particularly now, as their power begins to be, at once, more tenuous and more brutal, and their vaunted identities revealed as being dubious indeed.Με αφορμή, τέλος, το σενάριο που έγραφε και τελικώς απέσυρε για τη ζωή και τη δράση του Malcolm X, αλλά και με βάση την ταινία sitelinkLady Sings the Blues, που αφορά τη ζωή της Billie Holiday, κι αφού ο Baldwin τοποθετηθεί περί του σεναρίου ως as empty as a banana peel, and as treacherous, καταλήγει σε μια σύγκριση του γραπτού και του εικονικού λόγου:
The greater the public power, the greater the private, inadmissable despair the greater this despair, the greater the danger to all human life,
.so many fantastic moments here: the readings of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Exorcist, and Lady Sings the Blues the description of Baldwin's experience in Hollywood working on an adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X analysis of the structural limitations placed on black performers/performance Baldwin's complicated identifications with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
. . obviously the only way to translate the written word to the cinema involves doing considerable violence to the written word, to the extent, indeed, of forgetting the written word.
A film is meant to be seen, and, ideally, the less a film talks, the better, The cinematic translation, nevertheless, however great and necessary the violence it is compelled to use on the original form, is obliged to remain faithful to the intention, and the vision, of the original form.
The necessary violence of the translation involves making very subtle and difficult choices, The root motive of the choices made can be gauged by the effect of these choices: and the effect of these deliberate choices, deliberately made, must be considered as resulting in a willed and deliberate act that is, the film which we are seeing is the film we are intended to see.
so many. A collection of critical essays on cinema, The Devil Finds Work interrogates the racist ideology of landmark American films from the interwar and postwar eras.
Baldwin interweaves cultural criticism and autobiography as he moves from reflecting upon the messages coded in the films of his youth to critiquing popular movies of the mids.
The fact that he contextualizes cinema within the context of everyday life frames the two realms as interdependent it subsequently problematizes a model of criticism that assumes films can be discussed without reference to their society and history.
The points Baldwin makes throughout the essays are astute, but as he's developing a cumulative argument in the collection, the later essays necessarily read as more forceful and memorable.
Baldwin is always fantastic. His eloquence is overwhelming
This is, once again with Baldwin, an eyeopening, thought stimulating, emotiondriving book, What more can one say in the face of such eloquence and deep insight
He writes our collective pain and folly better than anyone, What a missed opportunity for the US not to have followed his lead decades ago, Baldwin's great and this is a wonderful book of his essays, What's really important to me is his essay on Boris Vian's noir novel "I Spit on Your Graves,' which I published some years ago and still in print!
Really enjoyed his critiques of Guess Whos Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night both starring Sidney Poitier.
James Baldwin eviscerating some of the plot holes and faulty logic that some of these films are peddling as a means to push false narratives will never not be edutainment to me.
Simultaneously education and entertainment Baldwin directs both actor, and viewer alike to the truth about society, the eras, and the real people behind the storylines melted, molded, watered down or shaped into other things on the big screen.
He forces you to take a deeper look at some of the roles that have catapulted certain actors to fame and the idiosyncratic elements that they have begged their viewership/audiences to overlook in order to integrate or to denigrate.
Of course he skillfully incorporates his own filmviewing experiences into the mix,
"And nothing, alas, has been made possible by this obligatory, fadeout kiss, this preposterous adventure: except that white Americans have been encouraged to continue dreaming, and black Americans have been alerted to the necessity of waking up.The Devil Finds Work is impeccably organized: it gets better and better.
" in 'The Devil Finds Work' by James Baldwin
Everything crescendos: the biting sarcasm, the incisive commentary, the clarity of the summaries, etc, What starts off as a good read to put it as both a slight and a compliment to Baldwin, subpar based on the standard to which I hold him begins to pull harder, to engross more, to elicit more investment.
The act is, in a way, four separate images coalescing into focus, and the image that results in his measured act of uniting those elements over time into a singular clarity is beyond splendid.
The execution of these essays, and the way in which they bring about this effect of increasing the focus steadily, is remarkable, And what an "image" a tableau, a lesson, an epiphany that feels like divine inspiration, perhaps one can behold by the The Devil Finds Work's end, Great stuff. “i did not intend to fail, and my first conscious calculation as to how to go about defeating the worlds intentions for me and mine began on that Saturday afternoon in what we called the movies, but which was actually my first entrance into the cinema of my mind.
”
James Baldwin, thank you, I wish I had been more familiar with the movies in the beginning of the book, I have not seen all of them, but Baldwins intelligent discussion was still interesting and illuminating, The way he dissects “Lady Sings the Blues” was the highlight for me, And his examination of the mindless banality of hysterical evil in “The Exorcist” is both powerful and entertaining, .