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The Devil Finds Work: An Essay
An incisive book-length essay about racism in American movies that challenges the underlying assumptions in many of the films that have shaped our consciousness.
Baldwin’s personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also an appraisal of American racial politics. Offering a look at racism in American movies and a vision of America’s self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin considers such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
Here are our loves and hates, biases and cruelties, fears and ignorance reflected by the films that have entertained and shaped us. And here too is the stunning prose of a writer whose passion never diminished his struggle for equality, justice, and social change.
Baldwin’s personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also an appraisal of American racial politics. Offering a look at racism in American movies and a vision of America’s self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin considers such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
Here are our loves and hates, biases and cruelties, fears and ignorance reflected by the films that have entertained and shaped us. And here too is the stunning prose of a writer whose passion never diminished his struggle for equality, justice, and social change.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
276 people are currently reading
8504 people want to read
About the author
James Baldwin
369 books16.7k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
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August 5, 2018
"
I found a leak in my building, and:
my soul has got to move.
I say:
my soul has got to move,
my soul has got to move. " - Epigraph for chapter three.
Being a black cinephile, I am always interested in reading other black cinephiles. James Baldwin just happens to be one such man. He has included some film criticism in all of his books of essays. This book is different because it is primarily about films that he has seen over his lifetime. If you have watched the excellent documentary (and the go-to introduction to Baldwin) I Am Not Your Negro, then you have already listened to at least 40% of the book--with the film scenes to go with the words! It is still Baldwin interrogating the true nature of the American republic, but with movies as the case study. Baldwin is snarkish, direct and poetic to great effect in this book. He does cover some already tread-on territory of his own life, but the main focus is what these movies say about the societies they are depicting in regards to race and sexuality. Since Baldwin reviews the movies methodically I will try to give summaries of some of the movies covered in the book.
It is no surprise that he reviews The Birth of A Nation based on the book The Clansman. While this was going to be an obvious critique, he focuses on the movie's crazed obsession with the idea that black people (or more specifically mulattoes) are happy and loyal in their place as long as they are not focused on self-respect, power or white women. Its influence is in the foolish arch-types it set for American films depicting black people and "race relations" ever since.
In The Heat of The Night: Baldwin takes the film to task for thinking that any black man would make any of the decisions that Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier--his films take a beating in this book) makes in the movie at that point in time (or now).
Going with the above: The Defiant Ones is an incredible (willful) misunderstanding of the difference between black rage and white rage. One is born in the reality of one's history and treatment, while the other is from the irrational fear in one's head of "blackness." The infamous, preposterous ending of the film is a lesson in Hollywood fantasy as no black person in that position would do that, so that, "The white boy has given up his woman. The black boy has given up his hope of freedom..." He says that this action at the end is possible from a homosexual context, but that the American mind does not have the emotional maturity to consider such a thing, despite it being a valid reason.
His dissecting of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is the comedic highlight of the book. There is much to criticize about the film (and the 2005 remake), but one cannot do it as well as James Baldwin. He manages to show some very eerie similarities between 'Guess' and TBOAN, most notably the black maid/mammy character in both films. This section was worth reading the whole book. One can tell he had fun with this part.
He uses the subject of Lawrence of Arabia to critique the movie and the book it was based on. He sees T.E. Lawrence to be a perfect example of the sort of warped mind that imperialism/colonialism produces. He does not pity Lawrence as much as the movie does ( which he considers an updated version of Gunga Din). He notes that even the over-bearing score is used to remind us of the British Empire. "It would appear that this island people need endless corroboration of their worth: and the tragedy of their history has been their compulsion to make the world their mirror..." Baldwin's argument is that the movie is about the mortification of an English schoolboy. He suggests a sequel could be made using the life of Neville Chamberlain.
He next does a very in-depth (about 4 pages) discourse on his impression of the McCarthy-era. I'll quote a section: "If I had ever really been able to hate white people, the era of that dimwitted, good-natured, flamboyant representative of the American people would have been pure heaven: for, not even the most vindictive hatred could have imagined the slimy depths to which the bulk of white Americans allowed themselves to sink: noisily, gracelessly, flatulent and foul with patriotism." He describes it as cowardly, infantile panic.
Baldwin begins chapter 3 with the story of his time in Hollywood writing the screenplay for a failed attempt to adapt The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Long story short: Fox studios tried to make ahokey "Hollywood" re-write of Baldwin's script and he bailed-out. He also saw the 1969 movie about Che Guevara which was just a thinly-veiled anti-communist (and anti-Hispanic) propaganda.
The longest review may be of the loose movie adaptation of Lady Sings the Blues. Billie Holiday had already stretched the truth some in the book (when you lived a life as brutal and hellish as hers, you would be tempted to change some facts to make thing feel slightly more reasonable--to have some agency in events), but Hollywood went further than anything Holiday would have done making the story barely based on anything in the book (this is very true). Baldwin also laments generally the way in which black artists are ignored by Hollywood, specifically naming Ethel Waters & Paul Robeson (who would die in obscurity a year after this book was published).
JB is not a fan of Blaxploitation movies, considering them to be industry gimmicks, that profit the system more than black filmmakers or actors. While I disagree with his applying this to all fims of that genre, certainly some were. He then goes on, interestingly enough, to name books that should be adapted to movies: Up from Slavery, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Invisible Man, Black Boy, The Bluest Eye to Soledad Brother. I wonder how he would feel knowing that his own novel If Beale Street Could Talk is getting a Hollywood adaptation.
He then suddenly goes in on a lengthy explanation of Pentecostal church-ritual, his ever distrust of white Christianity and the way his Pentecostal church contemplated the nature of sin and the Devil. This seems random, but in-fact it is the lead-up to the last film being discussed in the book and part of the reason for the title.
Baldwin saw The Exorcist twice, once with his brother and friends and another time by himself. Baldwin was told during the movie, "'So, we must be careful,' David said to me, 'lest we lose our faith--and become possessed.' He was no longer speaking of the film, nor was he speaking of the church.'" Baldwin says he would not criticize the supernatural elements of the film, because he was mindful of his own Pentecostal past. I'll turn the rest of the review over to James Baldwin:
"To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and if I can respect this, both of us can live. Neither of us, truly, can live without the other: a statement which would not sound so banal if one were not so endlessly compelled to repeat it, and act on that belief.
"For, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. The devil has no need of any dogma—though he can use them all—nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention. He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do.
The mindless and hysterical banality of evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should certainly know more about evil than that; if they pretend otherwise, they are lying, and any black man, and not only blacks—many, many others, including white children— can call them on this lie, he who has been treated as the devil recognizes the devil when they meet.
"The grapes of wrath are stored in the cotton fields and migrant shacks and ghettoes of this nation, and in the schools and prisons, and in the eyes and hearts and perceptions of the wretched everywhere, and in the ruined earth of Vietnam, and in the orphans and widows, and in the old men, seeing visions, and in the young men, dreaming dreams: these have already kissed the bloody cross and will not bow down before it again: and have forgotten nothing."
my soul has got to move.
I say:
my soul has got to move,
my soul has got to move. " - Epigraph for chapter three.
Being a black cinephile, I am always interested in reading other black cinephiles. James Baldwin just happens to be one such man. He has included some film criticism in all of his books of essays. This book is different because it is primarily about films that he has seen over his lifetime. If you have watched the excellent documentary (and the go-to introduction to Baldwin) I Am Not Your Negro, then you have already listened to at least 40% of the book--with the film scenes to go with the words! It is still Baldwin interrogating the true nature of the American republic, but with movies as the case study. Baldwin is snarkish, direct and poetic to great effect in this book. He does cover some already tread-on territory of his own life, but the main focus is what these movies say about the societies they are depicting in regards to race and sexuality. Since Baldwin reviews the movies methodically I will try to give summaries of some of the movies covered in the book.
It is no surprise that he reviews The Birth of A Nation based on the book The Clansman. While this was going to be an obvious critique, he focuses on the movie's crazed obsession with the idea that black people (or more specifically mulattoes) are happy and loyal in their place as long as they are not focused on self-respect, power or white women. Its influence is in the foolish arch-types it set for American films depicting black people and "race relations" ever since.
In The Heat of The Night: Baldwin takes the film to task for thinking that any black man would make any of the decisions that Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier--his films take a beating in this book) makes in the movie at that point in time (or now).
Going with the above: The Defiant Ones is an incredible (willful) misunderstanding of the difference between black rage and white rage. One is born in the reality of one's history and treatment, while the other is from the irrational fear in one's head of "blackness." The infamous, preposterous ending of the film is a lesson in Hollywood fantasy as no black person in that position would do that, so that, "The white boy has given up his woman. The black boy has given up his hope of freedom..." He says that this action at the end is possible from a homosexual context, but that the American mind does not have the emotional maturity to consider such a thing, despite it being a valid reason.
His dissecting of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is the comedic highlight of the book. There is much to criticize about the film (and the 2005 remake), but one cannot do it as well as James Baldwin. He manages to show some very eerie similarities between 'Guess' and TBOAN, most notably the black maid/mammy character in both films. This section was worth reading the whole book. One can tell he had fun with this part.
He uses the subject of Lawrence of Arabia to critique the movie and the book it was based on. He sees T.E. Lawrence to be a perfect example of the sort of warped mind that imperialism/colonialism produces. He does not pity Lawrence as much as the movie does ( which he considers an updated version of Gunga Din). He notes that even the over-bearing score is used to remind us of the British Empire. "It would appear that this island people need endless corroboration of their worth: and the tragedy of their history has been their compulsion to make the world their mirror..." Baldwin's argument is that the movie is about the mortification of an English schoolboy. He suggests a sequel could be made using the life of Neville Chamberlain.
He next does a very in-depth (about 4 pages) discourse on his impression of the McCarthy-era. I'll quote a section: "If I had ever really been able to hate white people, the era of that dimwitted, good-natured, flamboyant representative of the American people would have been pure heaven: for, not even the most vindictive hatred could have imagined the slimy depths to which the bulk of white Americans allowed themselves to sink: noisily, gracelessly, flatulent and foul with patriotism." He describes it as cowardly, infantile panic.
Baldwin begins chapter 3 with the story of his time in Hollywood writing the screenplay for a failed attempt to adapt The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Long story short: Fox studios tried to make a
The longest review may be of the loose movie adaptation of Lady Sings the Blues. Billie Holiday had already stretched the truth some in the book (when you lived a life as brutal and hellish as hers, you would be tempted to change some facts to make thing feel slightly more reasonable--to have some agency in events), but Hollywood went further than anything Holiday would have done making the story barely based on anything in the book (this is very true). Baldwin also laments generally the way in which black artists are ignored by Hollywood, specifically naming Ethel Waters & Paul Robeson (who would die in obscurity a year after this book was published).
JB is not a fan of Blaxploitation movies, considering them to be industry gimmicks, that profit the system more than black filmmakers or actors. While I disagree with his applying this to all fims of that genre, certainly some were. He then goes on, interestingly enough, to name books that should be adapted to movies: Up from Slavery, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Invisible Man, Black Boy, The Bluest Eye to Soledad Brother. I wonder how he would feel knowing that his own novel If Beale Street Could Talk is getting a Hollywood adaptation.
He then suddenly goes in on a lengthy explanation of Pentecostal church-ritual, his ever distrust of white Christianity and the way his Pentecostal church contemplated the nature of sin and the Devil. This seems random, but in-fact it is the lead-up to the last film being discussed in the book and part of the reason for the title.
Baldwin saw The Exorcist twice, once with his brother and friends and another time by himself. Baldwin was told during the movie, "'So, we must be careful,' David said to me, 'lest we lose our faith--and become possessed.' He was no longer speaking of the film, nor was he speaking of the church.'" Baldwin says he would not criticize the supernatural elements of the film, because he was mindful of his own Pentecostal past. I'll turn the rest of the review over to James Baldwin:
"To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and if I can respect this, both of us can live. Neither of us, truly, can live without the other: a statement which would not sound so banal if one were not so endlessly compelled to repeat it, and act on that belief.
"For, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. The devil has no need of any dogma—though he can use them all—nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention. He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do.
The mindless and hysterical banality of evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should certainly know more about evil than that; if they pretend otherwise, they are lying, and any black man, and not only blacks—many, many others, including white children— can call them on this lie, he who has been treated as the devil recognizes the devil when they meet.
"The grapes of wrath are stored in the cotton fields and migrant shacks and ghettoes of this nation, and in the schools and prisons, and in the eyes and hearts and perceptions of the wretched everywhere, and in the ruined earth of Vietnam, and in the orphans and widows, and in the old men, seeing visions, and in the young men, dreaming dreams: these have already kissed the bloody cross and will not bow down before it again: and have forgotten nothing."
June 30, 2021
excellent. This book may have been written in 1976 but given the topics at hand it is still beyond pertinent today. Honestly, I loved this book.
more to come
more to come
December 15, 2019
James Baldwin was a life-long film lover from his early childhood, and here he attacks racism in the film industry... in his own way, of course. Unfortunately for me he focuses on several classic films I've never seen. He hits hard on the pro-KKK (!!) film The Birth of the Nation. Then works through supposedly race-boundary breaking films like In the Heat of the Night, Guess Whose Coming to Dinner, and Billy Holiday. He attacks them all. They all get his brutal version of the black perspective and they are all, of course, pretty awful from that perspective.
I would have gotten a lot more out of this if I had seen all (or any) of these films, and would only recommend it to classic film buffs. But, I do wonder what would he say about film today, 40 plus years later.
-----------------------------------------------
62. The Devil Finds Work: An Essay by James Baldwin
published: 1976
format: 94 pages inside Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays
acquired: December 2018
read: Nov 30 – Dec 8
time reading: 3 hr 57 min, 2.5min/page
rating: 3
I would have gotten a lot more out of this if I had seen all (or any) of these films, and would only recommend it to classic film buffs. But, I do wonder what would he say about film today, 40 plus years later.
-----------------------------------------------
62. The Devil Finds Work: An Essay by James Baldwin
published: 1976
format: 94 pages inside Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays
acquired: December 2018
read: Nov 30 – Dec 8
time reading: 3 hr 57 min, 2.5min/page
rating: 3
September 28, 2025
A witty and effervescent collection of essays, meditating on film and white privilege during the 1940s-1970s. From a deeply unsettling critique of race and white privilege found in the film In this our Life starring Bette Davis; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner- a classic case of Hollywood liberalism disguised as progress for Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy; to the horrors of The Exorcist of which for a moment is seen as an awareness of the other; then a fretful return to the bourgeoisie.
February 11, 2022
Really enjoyed his critiques of Guess Who’s 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 film-viewing experiences into the mix.
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 film-viewing experiences into the mix.
"And nothing, alas, has been made possible by this obligatory, fade-out 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." — 44% in 'The Devil Finds Work' by James Baldwin
February 22, 2025
I must say, I was lured by these first lines of the Baldwin essays in this book:
From "Congo Square:" "Joan Crawford's straight, narrow, and lonely back."
From "Who Saw Him Die? I, Said the Fly:" "I Shall Spit On Your Graves is a French look at the black American problem."
From "Where the Grapes of Wrath are Stored:" "At the top of 1968, over the vehement protests of my family and my friends, I flew to Hollywood to write the screenplay for The Autobiography of Malcolm X."
In case you were wondering, Baldwin never did complete the writing of the play for his friend. He packed up and left not too long after he arrived, due to the censorship he experienced while trying to write a screenplay from a Black perspective about Black perspectives. He covers these themes in his critique of films. If you are not a reader of film criticism, or someone who has seen classic films, you may struggle with this one. I am neither, but I am a devoted reader of Baldwin.
This is book 12 in my reading of Baldwin. One thing I highlighted pretty quickly, that seemed to be an extension of what I excerpted from my most recent reading of No Name in the Street, are his thoughts on identity, phrased differently, but with similar messaging:
Thanks to Baldwin, I've rewatched episodes of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? online as I read his thoughts. Baldwin addresses the myth of "I don't see color" and the concept of "the white gaze" by showing how these things are depicted in movies (scenes he details from Guess Who are prime examples). I remember watching this movie once, when I was younger, and also remember the applause everyone had (including Baldwin) for Poitier's performance and the idea that there was Black representation in films. Notwithstanding, Baldwin delves into the shortcomings of the writing and production of this movie, of how scenes could have been depicted more realistically had they not been written for the "white gaze."
Baldwin searches for the true black experience depicted in film, and no one is exempt, not even blaxploitation movies like Shaft. I wonder what he would have thought of producers and directors like John Singleton and Shonda Rhimes? Are they giving what he sought? These are his personal experiences as he wanders in frustration and loneliness, with films as his outlet, so there are some debatable references. Yet Baldwin has a way of baring the truth that I have always admired. I was thankful that his critique of Lady Sings the Blues made me revisit Billie Holiday, whom I admire and whose songs I still play, and I was able to reread portions of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, a biography I found moving for various reasons.
Reading this underscored the importance of films for me, yes, but it also highlighted the importance of books. Physical books. The importance of libraries. It showcases the importance of collections like the Schomburg Center, which Baldwin mentions visiting, for the history recorded there cannot be edited or erased (hopefully). In any case, when things change online and in the world, one can always visit her home library to be reminded. She can always reach for Baldwin, the truthsayer.
From "Congo Square:" "Joan Crawford's straight, narrow, and lonely back."
From "Who Saw Him Die? I, Said the Fly:" "I Shall Spit On Your Graves is a French look at the black American problem."
From "Where the Grapes of Wrath are Stored:" "At the top of 1968, over the vehement protests of my family and my friends, I flew to Hollywood to write the screenplay for The Autobiography of Malcolm X."
In case you were wondering, Baldwin never did complete the writing of the play for his friend. He packed up and left not too long after he arrived, due to the censorship he experienced while trying to write a screenplay from a Black perspective about Black perspectives. He covers these themes in his critique of films. If you are not a reader of film criticism, or someone who has seen classic films, you may struggle with this one. I am neither, but I am a devoted reader of Baldwin.
This is book 12 in my reading of Baldwin. One thing I highlighted pretty quickly, that seemed to be an extension of what I excerpted from my most recent reading of No Name in the Street, are his thoughts on identity, phrased differently, but with similar messaging:
An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger: the stranger's presence making you the stranger, less to the stranger than to yourself.
Thanks to Baldwin, I've rewatched episodes of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? online as I read his thoughts. Baldwin addresses the myth of "I don't see color" and the concept of "the white gaze" by showing how these things are depicted in movies (scenes he details from Guess Who are prime examples). I remember watching this movie once, when I was younger, and also remember the applause everyone had (including Baldwin) for Poitier's performance and the idea that there was Black representation in films. Notwithstanding, Baldwin delves into the shortcomings of the writing and production of this movie, of how scenes could have been depicted more realistically had they not been written for the "white gaze."
Baldwin searches for the true black experience depicted in film, and no one is exempt, not even blaxploitation movies like Shaft. I wonder what he would have thought of producers and directors like John Singleton and Shonda Rhimes? Are they giving what he sought? These are his personal experiences as he wanders in frustration and loneliness, with films as his outlet, so there are some debatable references. Yet Baldwin has a way of baring the truth that I have always admired. I was thankful that his critique of Lady Sings the Blues made me revisit Billie Holiday, whom I admire and whose songs I still play, and I was able to reread portions of If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, a biography I found moving for various reasons.
Reading this underscored the importance of films for me, yes, but it also highlighted the importance of books. Physical books. The importance of libraries. It showcases the importance of collections like the Schomburg Center, which Baldwin mentions visiting, for the history recorded there cannot be edited or erased (hopefully). In any case, when things change online and in the world, one can always visit her home library to be reminded. She can always reach for Baldwin, the truthsayer.
March 18, 2024
‘Here, nothing corroborated any of my fantasies: flesh and blood was being challenged by flesh and blood. It is said that the camera cannot lie, but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see. The language of the camera is the language of our dreams.’
Baldwin’s writing on (mostly) films/cinema (and then some more) is fully deserving of a full 5*, but I am only going for a 3* because I am not big enough of a cinephile? But I wanted to read it anyway, or rather finish reading it because I ‘enjoyed’ reading a few brilliant excerpt(s) from it a while ago. Super glad that I read it regardless of me essentially being massively ‘annoying’ about it. I particularly like Baldwin’s comparison of ‘The Godfather’ x ‘The Exorcist’. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.
‘The film, or its ambience, reminded me of The Godfather, both being afflicted with the same pious ambiguity. Ambiguity is not quite the word, for the film’s intention is not at all ambiguous; yet, hypocrisy is not quite the word, either, since it suggests a more deliberate and sophisticated level of cunning. The Exorcist is desperately compulsive, and compulsive, precisely, in the terror of its unbelief. The vast quantities of tomato paste expended in The Godfather are meant to suggest vast reservoirs of courage, devotion, and nobility, qualities with which the film is not in the least concerned—and which, apart from Brando’s performance, are never present in it. (And, at that, it is probably more accurate to speak of Brando’s presence, a pride, an agony, an irreducible dignity.)
The Exorcist has absolutely nothing going for it, except Satan, who is certainly the star: I can say only that Satan was never like that when he crossed my path (for one thing, the evil one never so rudely underestimated me). His concerns were more varied, and his methods more subtle. The Exorcist is not in the least concerned with damnation, an abysm far beyond the confines of its imagination, but with property, with safety, tax shelters, stocks and bonds, rising and falling markets, the continued invulnerability of a certain class of people, and the continued sanctification of a certain history. If The Exorcist itself believed this history, it could scarcely be reduced to so abject a dependence on special effects.’
One of my closest friends asked me recently about what the last ‘movie’ I watched was, and I was like – ‘Oppenheimer’, which was so fab I watched it three times back to back (actually I rewatched ‘Arrival’ most recently). And he was disappointed that I haven’t been watching ‘enough’ so I (too quickly) promised I’ll watch the two ‘movies’ he asked me to, but of course I haven’t done that (on top of that I ‘forgot’ about our plan to watch a Wong Kar Wai film the other day. And someone else also asked me to watch WKW’s latest TV ‘series’ recently, but knowing me I’d probably spend my time reading instead). He said to watch it together (to make sure I actually watch it), and I half-jokingly (in the most nonchalant way) told him that I’ll play it on the laptop on the side when the football is on. And he basically went off on me (ended in laughs; we’re still friends, it’s all good). Anyway my point being (to reiterate) : this book should be a 5*. And/but the problem is me. Evidently I am not ‘serious’ enough about ‘movies’. In any case, I adore Baldwin’s writing style/tone; very keen to read more of his work.
‘Both the Sheik and Tarzan are white men who look and act like black men—act like black men, that is, according to the white imagination which has created them: one can eat one’s cake without having it, or one can have one’s cake without eating it.’
August 12, 2024
Baldwin uses a review of films relating to race to deconstruct the current race situation (in the early 1970s). This is a fantastic book and not just for hyper fans of Baldwin. God this man is a treasure.
January 9, 2018
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 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ως το The 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
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 Lawrence 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
Από το Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ως το The 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 Lawrence 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. The greater the public power, the greater the private, inadmissable despair; the greater this despair, the greater the danger to all human life.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 Lady 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:
[...]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.
August 31, 2025
objectively cant find much fault with this, i’m just not a huge cinephile. Particularly loved the parts where he interjects with his own life.
Would kill to see a james baldwin letterboxd account
Would kill to see a james baldwin letterboxd account
February 20, 2022
Five star reviews are a rarity for me, but I'm giving one here; though to be clear, that's rounded up because of Dion Graham's truly outstanding narration, where I had to consciously recall that the author died long before audiobooks were a thing.
These days, any discussion involving racism strikes me as a loaded minefield, so I feel fewer, more carefully chosen words from me would be better than an extensive report. My take-away was that much of Baldwin's frustration, at times outright anger, was directed at white writers, producers, etc missing the point. Specifically, with regard to the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Baldwin brings up that the relationship between the black groom and his father likely had a lot of context totally missing in the story. He also goes on to point out that the black maid/housekeeper was opposed to the mixed marriage, in the sense of considering herself enough a part of the family to have an opinion. He gives other examples of watching films where he found the racial angles unrealistic, something white audiences could not know (from experience). If there's anything negative to say, it'd be that I didn't feel the section on The Exorcist had any real relevance ("One of these things is not like the others..." as the song goes).
Anyway, this one falls solidly in the Highly Recommended category, especially as an audiobook.
These days, any discussion involving racism strikes me as a loaded minefield, so I feel fewer, more carefully chosen words from me would be better than an extensive report. My take-away was that much of Baldwin's frustration, at times outright anger, was directed at white writers, producers, etc missing the point. Specifically, with regard to the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Baldwin brings up that the relationship between the black groom and his father likely had a lot of context totally missing in the story. He also goes on to point out that the black maid/housekeeper was opposed to the mixed marriage, in the sense of considering herself enough a part of the family to have an opinion. He gives other examples of watching films where he found the racial angles unrealistic, something white audiences could not know (from experience). If there's anything negative to say, it'd be that I didn't feel the section on The Exorcist had any real relevance ("One of these things is not like the others..." as the song goes).
Anyway, this one falls solidly in the Highly Recommended category, especially as an audiobook.
September 20, 2015
Baldwin dissects films to discover their subterranean socio-political agendas and and weaves in some fascinating personal history to boot. He perhaps reads a little too much into his interpretations, but is essentially correct about everything. A tough book for me, though, because I love Hollywood hokum and don't always want to think about how faithfully it serves reactionary interests by smothering reality with schmaltz and pablum.
December 5, 2022
3.75/5 Stars
A very interesting book! I've been slacking on my reviews for Goodreads but i promise they'll come! Lol
A very interesting book! I've been slacking on my reviews for Goodreads but i promise they'll come! Lol
August 24, 2019
James Baldwin n'est pas le genre d'homme à baisser la tête et à faire profil bas parce qu'il est noir et homosexuel.
Il décide donc de s'exiler en France à vingt quatre ans pour y trouver une vie plus facile. "Le Diable trouve à faire" a été écrit par James Baldwin en 1976, mais il n'est édité qu'aujourd'hui. L'auteur serait-il devenu à la "mode" ?
Dans ce livre-ci, il s'attaque au cinéma hollywoodien. Dès le plus jeune âge, il a usé ses fonds de culottes dans les fauteuils des salles obscures, amoureux de Bette Davis. le cinéma des années 60 ne s'embarrasse pas des clichés du noir esclave, exemple : "Autant en emporte le vent" ou du noir qui serre "la soupe" aux comédiens blancs, exemple : Sydney Poitier dans "Devine qui vient diner ce soir ?".
James Baldwin décrypte ce politiquement correct que les médias vendent aux WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).
L'auteur dénonce tout simplement le racisme dans le cinéma et plus largement dans la vie de tous les jours aux Etats-Unis.
Cet ouvrage est à mi-chemin entre l'autobiographie et l'essai. Et il est passionnant à lire.
L'auteur commence, aujourd'hui, à être reconnu grâce au succès du documentaire "I'm not your negro" de Raoul Peck.
Foncez, d'abord, lire ce livre (si ce n'est pas déjà fait) et ceux que l'on édite et/ou réédite.
Très bonne lecture !
Il décide donc de s'exiler en France à vingt quatre ans pour y trouver une vie plus facile. "Le Diable trouve à faire" a été écrit par James Baldwin en 1976, mais il n'est édité qu'aujourd'hui. L'auteur serait-il devenu à la "mode" ?
Dans ce livre-ci, il s'attaque au cinéma hollywoodien. Dès le plus jeune âge, il a usé ses fonds de culottes dans les fauteuils des salles obscures, amoureux de Bette Davis. le cinéma des années 60 ne s'embarrasse pas des clichés du noir esclave, exemple : "Autant en emporte le vent" ou du noir qui serre "la soupe" aux comédiens blancs, exemple : Sydney Poitier dans "Devine qui vient diner ce soir ?".
James Baldwin décrypte ce politiquement correct que les médias vendent aux WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).
L'auteur dénonce tout simplement le racisme dans le cinéma et plus largement dans la vie de tous les jours aux Etats-Unis.
Cet ouvrage est à mi-chemin entre l'autobiographie et l'essai. Et il est passionnant à lire.
L'auteur commence, aujourd'hui, à être reconnu grâce au succès du documentaire "I'm not your negro" de Raoul Peck.
Foncez, d'abord, lire ce livre (si ce n'est pas déjà fait) et ceux que l'on édite et/ou réédite.
Très bonne lecture !
Read
February 13, 2025James Baldwin and I share a birthday, and that’s one of the greatest honors of my existence. His writing is humorous, critical, and downright devastating at times. I will be reading more of his work soon!
July 2, 2015
The Devil Finds Work is impeccably organized: it gets better and better. 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, sub-par 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 book's end. Great stuff.
March 22, 2022
Baldwin here analyzes several films, and a few books, and discusses what they say— or refuse to say— about American society, specifically with regard to race. If you’ve read Baldwin before you’ll know to expect his writing to be clear and captivating, and his critiques to be perceptive and provocative.
He remarks upon a number of movies, but these are the films which he discusses in detail:
The Birth of a Nation
In the Heat of the Night
The Defiant Ones
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Laurence of Arabia
My Son, John
Lady Sings the Blues
The Exorcist
He remarks upon a number of movies, but these are the films which he discusses in detail:
The Birth of a Nation
In the Heat of the Night
The Defiant Ones
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Laurence of Arabia
My Son, John
Lady Sings the Blues
The Exorcist
January 18, 2024
a collection of essays critiquing popular films from his time. seeing as these essays revolved around films i've never seen, and pop culture i wasn't around for, it left me a bit lost at times. still, the essays were packed with valuable commentary on race & the simplification of black stories. particularly enjoyed the essay comparing billie holiday's depiction on screen vs. her personal account of events.
i've read much of his writing and always forget how hard his prose is for me to comprehend 💔inshallah i will have more brain cells next time i pick up one of his works 🙏📿
i've read much of his writing and always forget how hard his prose is for me to comprehend 💔inshallah i will have more brain cells next time i pick up one of his works 🙏📿
October 18, 2018
I only wish I had watched all these movies so I could even more savor these words. The man is the God of prose.
April 2, 2019
Baldwin on movies, but really (as ever) Baldwin on racism and America. Amazing stuff.
January 3, 2025
Absolutely amazing way to start 2025! With the greatest ever. So acute and beautifully written. Just genuinely a genius with stunning observations about the US. 1000/10!
Lots of quotes but here are a few:
“I can produce no documents proving that I am not what I was.”
“To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and, if I can respect this, both of us can live.”
“To live in connection with a life beyond this life means, in ef-fect- in truth--that, frightened as one may be, and no matter how limited, or how lonely, and no matter how the deal, at last, goes down, no man can ever frighten you.”
“This relentless need for something much deeper than revenge comes close to the truth of many lives, black and white: but revenge is not among the human possibilities. Revenge is a human dream. There is no way of conveying to the corpse the reasons you have made him one--you have the corpse, and you at thereafter, at the mercy of a fact which missed the truth, which means that the corpse has you.”
“unless one can conceive of (and endure) an abstract life there can be no abstract questions. A question is a threat, the door which slams shut, or swings open: on another threat.”
Just insane 😭😭😭 brilliant
Lots of quotes but here are a few:
“I can produce no documents proving that I am not what I was.”
“To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and, if I can respect this, both of us can live.”
“To live in connection with a life beyond this life means, in ef-fect- in truth--that, frightened as one may be, and no matter how limited, or how lonely, and no matter how the deal, at last, goes down, no man can ever frighten you.”
“This relentless need for something much deeper than revenge comes close to the truth of many lives, black and white: but revenge is not among the human possibilities. Revenge is a human dream. There is no way of conveying to the corpse the reasons you have made him one--you have the corpse, and you at thereafter, at the mercy of a fact which missed the truth, which means that the corpse has you.”
“unless one can conceive of (and endure) an abstract life there can be no abstract questions. A question is a threat, the door which slams shut, or swings open: on another threat.”
Just insane 😭😭😭 brilliant
October 30, 2024
“The language of the camera is the language of our dreams”
February 19, 2021
I love Classic Movies, so when I saw that James Baldwin wrote a book about them, I knew I'd have to read it.
What I enjoyed the most about this book, was that it was written by a person who saw these films at the time they were released. Most books about classic movies are written in the perspective of time & distance, rather than as a child or adult sitting in the theater, seeing these pictures for the first time. There is much value in seeing these movies through his eyes. When Baldwin talks about seeing Birth of a Nation and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on the same day & how the maid's part hasn't changed in the 50 or so years between those 2 vastly different films, it makes you feel as if your head will explode with rage. It's maddening how little things have changed.
PS: It just so happened that TCM showed In This Our Life tonight (2/17). O.M.G! I can understand why Mr Baldwin called Bette Davis "the toast of Harlem" for her "ruthlessly accurate (and much underrated) portrait of a Southern girl." I cannot say enough about this film. I had a hard time getting to sleep after watching it. It will stick with me for some time to come. Whew.
It is said that the camera cannot lie, but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see. The language of the camera is the language of our dreams.
What I enjoyed the most about this book, was that it was written by a person who saw these films at the time they were released. Most books about classic movies are written in the perspective of time & distance, rather than as a child or adult sitting in the theater, seeing these pictures for the first time. There is much value in seeing these movies through his eyes. When Baldwin talks about seeing Birth of a Nation and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on the same day & how the maid's part hasn't changed in the 50 or so years between those 2 vastly different films, it makes you feel as if your head will explode with rage. It's maddening how little things have changed.
People who cannot escape thinking of themselves as white are poorly equipped, if equipped at all, to consider the meaning of black: people who know so little about themselves can face very little in another.
PS: It just so happened that TCM showed In This Our Life tonight (2/17). O.M.G! I can understand why Mr Baldwin called Bette Davis "the toast of Harlem" for her "ruthlessly accurate (and much underrated) portrait of a Southern girl." I cannot say enough about this film. I had a hard time getting to sleep after watching it. It will stick with me for some time to come. Whew.
February 5, 2021
so many movies i had yet to dissect the below surface level commentary and subliminal messaging of. can't say it was surprising, but it was very important to read about these films and how the weaponization of whiteness through actors on screen contributes to the steam roller that is white supremacy in film production.
January 14, 2023
Writing is as good as ever, but I haven’t actually seen any of the movies he talks about. (My failing not his.)
December 11, 2023
Review to come.
October 18, 2015
I've been reading some of James Baldwin's fiction and nonfiction in recent years. I've had a hard time consuming it critically. His influence on current cultural writers I admire, his contributions to critical theory, even his difficult prose; these all contribute to fan-boy level admiration from me. I don't think Baldwin would've taken kindly to this. Baldwin was a radical. Radicals are skeptical of mainstream success. Whether he would've liked it or not, Baldwin is achieving new heights of mainstream success posthumously.
With this in mind, I walked into The Devil Finds Work tepidly. I love films. I love reading and writing film criticism. Films, for me, are the most comfortable works of art (especially pop art) to engage with. This book is much less about movie reviews than about cultural theory. It may be more useful to think of this book as a using movies as a jumping off point to social commentary. That's what any good art criticism should be. And as an exercise in criticism, there's a lot to learn from Baldwin here. The specific works in this book, I was less familiar with, with the exception of some very popular films from this time. But the themes were timeless. America is still grappling with many of these problems.
The best thing I learned from this book, though, was that cultural criticism is best when it squarely places the critic in relation to the art. Critics who aspire to some level of academic distance from the piece of art they're dealing with end up doing a disservice to the art, the reader, and themselves.
With this in mind, I walked into The Devil Finds Work tepidly. I love films. I love reading and writing film criticism. Films, for me, are the most comfortable works of art (especially pop art) to engage with. This book is much less about movie reviews than about cultural theory. It may be more useful to think of this book as a using movies as a jumping off point to social commentary. That's what any good art criticism should be. And as an exercise in criticism, there's a lot to learn from Baldwin here. The specific works in this book, I was less familiar with, with the exception of some very popular films from this time. But the themes were timeless. America is still grappling with many of these problems.
The best thing I learned from this book, though, was that cultural criticism is best when it squarely places the critic in relation to the art. Critics who aspire to some level of academic distance from the piece of art they're dealing with end up doing a disservice to the art, the reader, and themselves.
June 14, 2020
Brilliant look at movies and their disconnect from racial reality, from Baldwin’s childhood, adulthood, and the present-day (of the 1970s). The long essay flows less smoothly from film to film than I could wish; his leaps of logic are often difficult for me—very challenging music. But each film gets a ruthless, often sardonic analysis, with Baldwin’s point often being the unbelievability caused by forcing the story into an acceptable structure for white audiences.
Best parts are his isolated illuminations, which read like poetry and convince like revealed truth. Like this one about Lady Sings the Blues and how the film refuses to be true to its source material—the autobiography of its subject, Billie Holiday: “That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat. The victim’s testimony must, therefore, be altered.”
Best parts are his isolated illuminations, which read like poetry and convince like revealed truth. Like this one about Lady Sings the Blues and how the film refuses to be true to its source material—the autobiography of its subject, Billie Holiday: “That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat. The victim’s testimony must, therefore, be altered.”
August 9, 2020
All I can say is Baldwin comes across here as a man who tries his best to be honest with himself about everything. I learned a lot, more than I have completely processed yet. I can't recommend this enough, everyone should understand what he shouts out here. Everything is clear and relevant almost half a century after he wrote it down.
December 5, 2021
I wish I had been more familiar with the movies in the beginning of the book. I have not seen all of them, but Baldwin’s 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.
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