Tag Archives: If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins)

RASHID JOHNSON’S NATIVE SON

For his directorial debut, Rashid Johnson has shot an update of Richard Wright’s controversial 1940 novel about Bigger Thomas’ seemingly irrevocable slide into the void. The screenplay by Suzan Lori-Parks changes some of the novel’s key plot points—”It’s not the book,” Elvis Mitchell told a recent Film Independent audience at the Arclight screening in Hollywood—but the expendability of black lives in this new NATIVE SON is, tragically, still contemporary.

“One of the criticisms of the book—and one I share—is the character’s lack of agency. Wright wrote them as archetypes.” — Rashid Johnson, at the Film Independent screening of NATIVE SON

As Bigger, Ashton Sanders (Moonlight) gives a performance of cool hesitation that recalls the voice and armature of James Dean and a young Keanu Reeves. For a scene at the home of Bigger’s rich, art-collecting employer, Johnson—in an audacious move—places his own 2015 painting Untitled (Anxious Man) directly behind Sanders as an angel/devil-over-my-shoulder figure.

NATIVE SON—which premieres tonight on HBO—co-stars KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk), Bill Camp, Sanaa Lathan, Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, Elizabeth Marvel, and David Alan Grier.

NATIVE SON, on HBO

From April 6.

Film stills, from top: Ashton Sanders in Native Son (2019); Sanders and KiKi Layne; Sanders; Sanders and Nick Robinson (right); Sanders. Photographs by Matthew Libatique, images courtesy Sundance Institute and HBO.

Film Independent photos, from top: KiKi Layne and Rashid Johnson; Elvis Mitchell, Johnson, and Layne. Film Independent Presents HBO Screening Series—Native Son, March 20, 2019, Arclight Hollywood, photographs by Araya Diaz/Getty Images.

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

“You have two fathers committing crimes to bail out a son who has committed no crimes—which is America in a nutshell.” — Barry Jenkins, December 5, Los Angeles*

Jenkins’ IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK—a lyrical cinematic elegy to familial love and shattered lives shot in amber and scored with apprehension—finally arrives in cinemas this week.*

At the recent Film Independent Presents screening in Hollywood, Jenkins and KiKi Layne—who plays Tish in the film—were joined by Out magazine’s Tre’vell Anderson for a post-screening Q & A, and over the weekend, Layne will return to the Arclight for pre- and post-screening conversations with her fellow actors.

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

BARRY JENKINS IN CONVERSATION

Monday, January 14, at 7:30 pm.

Aero Theatre

1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica.

Opens Thursday, December 13, at 7pm.

Cinerama Dome

6360 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

KIKI LAYNE, STEPHAN JAMES, and COLMAN DOMINGO IN CONVERSATION

Friday through Sunday, December 14, 15, and 16.

Cinerama Dome

6360 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

*James Laxton was the director of photography, and Nicholas Britell composed the music for the film. Both had previously worked with Jenkins on Moonlight.

From top: Tre’vell Anderson, KiKi Layne and Barry Jenkins at the Film Independent Presents screening and Q & A, December 5, 2018, Arclight, Hollywood; Layne and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could TalkRegina King in the film. Film images courtesy Annapurna PicturesArclight photograph courtesy Getty Images and Film Independent.

BARRY JENKINS AND DARRYL PINCKNEY IN CONVERSATION

Join Barry Jenkins and Darryl Pinckney (author of the brilliant 2016 novel Black Deutschland ) at Lincoln Center this week for a discussion of the Moonlight director’s new film If Beale Street Could Talk, screening at the 56th New York Film Festival.

 

AN AFTERNOON WITH BARRY JENKINS

Monday, October 8, at noon.

Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway (at 65th Street), New York City.

See Angela Flournoy’s profile of Barry Jenkins in today’s New York Times Magazine.

Image credit above: Annapurna Pictures.

Below: Director Barry Jenkins in 2016 introducing Moonlight. Photograph by Sean DiSerio. Image credit: New York Film Festival.

BEALE STREET AT THE APOLLO

As part of the 56th New York Film Festival, and its debut presentation at the venue, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (2018)—Barry Jenkins’ first film since Moonlight—will have its U.S. premiere at the Apollo Theater, in Harlem, the setting of the James Baldwin novel on which the film is based.

Tickets are on sale now, and two encore screenings at Lincoln Center will follow.

 

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK U.S. premiere

Tuesday, October 9, at 7:30 pm.

Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th Street, New York City.

 

Encore screenings:

Thursday, October 11 at 8:30pm.

Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway (at 65th Street), New York City.

Sunday, October 14, at 5pm.

Walter Reade Theater , 165 West 65th Street, New York City.

See: KiKi Layne

Above: KiKi Layne and Barry Jenkins at the Essence Festival in New Orleans on July 6, 2018. Photograph by Craig Barritt.

Below: Layne and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could Talk. Image credit: Annapurna Pictures.