I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 93 minuten
Country:
Switzerland / France / Belgium / United States
Directed by: Raoul Peck
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson
IMDb score:
7,9 (24.705)
Releasedate: 3 February 2017
I Am Not Your Negro plot
James Baldwin was an African-American writer, born in 1924. He is best known for his book Go Tell it on the Mountain. Most of his books deal with racial and sexual problems in the United States. He died in 1987 while his last book was not yet finished. It is about his murdered friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. The rough, unfinished version of the book came into the hands of director Raoul Peck.
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Actors and actresses
Narration (voice)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
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Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self - Black Panther Party (archive footage)
Reviews & comments
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
Strong documentary told from the opinion formation of James Baldwin, a man who was unknown to me until this documentary. Baldwin starts from the struggle of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers against racial segregation and discrimination from the 1950s to the present. Raoul Peck brings this to the screen very professionally. Here and there I found the documentary to be a bit jumpy and lacking in structure. Yet it remains extremely fascinating to follow the charismatic, eloquent Baldwin who has the art of analyzing things and presenting them in a smooth manner. The quote "White is a metaphor for power" in particular stood out to me as a summary of his message.
In recent months I have seen several films about these dark pages in American history. I am always amazed and touched by it. This time again. It never ceases to amaze me how deeply rooted and institutionalized this thinking was only 50-60 years ago. And not only from the population, but even driven by the government, regionally and nationally.
Discrimination is serious and is still present today, but is also often subcutaneously present in society. Segregation, on the other hand, has fortunately been eliminated (although cultural and religious movements each find their way), but is so much more open and visually visible and all the more striking to behold.
The documentary does not preach revolution, but simply points out. Somehow in a lighter way (a dive into film history). SL Jackson's voice also fits well with the atmosphere of the documentary: serene and with personality. A successful documentary that is recommended as a general "must see". Only with the images at Ferguson it is necessary to be careful that the message is not presented too one-sided. It may well be that ... but merely showing those images without context (however correct/incorrect the reason may be) is borderline.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Movsin
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- 8286 messages
- 8441 votes
Yet a cutting documentary about racial discrimination in the States, how the black population still feels subordinate and not free as it should be.
Film shows many film fragments with examples of how white stars showed themselves beautiful, cheerful, heroic and righteous, something that blacks never had the chance to do.
In the end, quite a few statements underline the bitterness of the black population, a bitterness to which whites are blind and find no reason for it.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Film Pegasus (moderator films)
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- 31191 messages
- 5473 votes
The story of the life of the black American. Baldwin was a contemporary of well-known pioneers of equality between white and black: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Spokespeople for oppressed Americans who, because of their dark skin color, were not seen as human beings, did not have the same rights, did not have the same opportunities. Evers, X and King each fought that battle in their own way, although they could find each other somewhere. If I follow the documentary, it was James Baldwin who was not tied to any one group, witnessed all the major events, understood the message very well from those important contemporaries, and lived long enough to make a broader analysis of it. This resulted in the script Remember This House, which eventually became this documentary with an additional version in book form 30 years after his death.
The documentary is very well done. A message written by someone who experiences everything himself, who was a witness from the front row and made by people who understood him all too well. Because racism is far from gone. The inequality is still there. There is something timeless about the documentary.
I hope that I can say of myself that I have enough empathy to empathize with black Americans, that I show understanding, that I have a great envy of racism and that I am a supporter of equal rights and equal opportunities. But it is something else to really experience what they experience, what they feel. By going back to the 1960s, when several big names (not only Malcolm X or Martin Luther King but also well-known figures such as Harry Belafonte or Sidney Poitier) opened up the social debate. Being heard is something else of course.
In any case, a very nice documentary where the content appears well and it is not just a collection of images. I also had the impression that it was an emotional documentary, or at least that's how it came across.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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