I Am Not Your Negro
Oscar-Nominated
Documentary about James Baldwin's Arrives on Home Video
When
novelist/social critic James Baldwin passed away in 1987, he left
behind an unfinished opus entitled "Remember This House."
The 30-page manuscript assessed the plight of African-Americans in
the United States while specifically reflecting upon the
assassinations of three civil rights icons: Malcolm X, Medgar Evers
and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
With
I Am Not Your Negro, director Raoul Peck (Lumumba) fleshes out
Baldwin's musings, cinematically, into a searing indictment of the
United States as an unapologetically-racist nation. Narrated by
Samuel L. Jackson, the movie has been nominated for an Academy Award
in the Best Documentary category.
The
focus of the film never strays far from Baldwin, nimbly alternating
between archival footage of the fiery figure challenging the status
quo and Jackson's readings from "Remember This House" and
his other writings. Again and again, we hear him question the depth
of the country's commitment to reverse the damage inflicted upon the
black community by generations of slavery, lynchings and Jim Crow
segregation.
For
example, he asserts that most Caucasians are perfectly comfortable
relegating African-Americans to a second-class status. He even goes
so far as to refer to them as morally-blind monsters for seeing
blacks as sub-human. Until that attitude is eradicated, whites will
never recognize that "I am flesh of their flesh."
Baldwin
concludes that "The story of the Negro in America is the story
of America." Therefore, with black and white fates inextricably
linked, "It's not a question of what happens to the Negro. The
real question is what is going to happen to this country."
Given
the precarious state of race relations, the late visionary's
prescient insights perhaps prove more timely, posthumously, than in
their own day.
Rated PG-13 for profanity, mature themes, violent images and brief nudity`
Running time: 94 minutes
Distributor: Magnolia Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Interview and Q&A session with director Raoul Peck; Q&A session with Samuel L. Jackson; and a video photo gallery of stills featured in the film.
To
see a trailer for I Am Not Your Negro, visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNUYdgIyaPM
To order
a copy of I Am Not
Your Negro on DVD,
visit:
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