Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and with unprecedented access to author and public intellectual James Baldwin’s original work, award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (Murder in Pacot, Moloch Tropical, Lumumba), has completed the cinematic version of the book Baldwin never wrote.
In 1979 when literary agent Jay Acton asked Baldwin to write about the lives and assassinations of his friends Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, he responded with a 30-page letter explaining why he couldn’t. This manuscript, entitled Notes Toward Remember This House, was entrusted to Peck by the writer’s estate and serves as the backbone of the film. Alongside an exploration of these key Civil Rights figures, Peck also gives us a fascinating picture of Baldwin himself while uncovering the deeper narrative of America’s troubled relationship with race.
In a form as radical as the man that inspired it, Baldwin’s words are juxtaposed with interviews, music, archive footage and images of present-day America to create an overwhelmingly powerful, essayistic mosaic that lays bare the persistent violence and systemic inequality suffered by America’s black population.
One of the best movies about the civil rights era ever made
Guardian ∗∗∗∗∗