Film Screenings / Programs / Series
SEMPER, ROI, SEMPER: AMIRI BARAKA (1934-2014)
May 15 – May 18
Born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey in 1934, Amiri Baraka is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential writers of the 20th century. In the early 1950s, after a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Air Force, Baraka landed in Greenwich Village, where he became a seminal figure in the Beat movement, editing the avant-garde literary journals Yugen and Floating Bear, and publishing his first two collections of poems. In 1965, in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X, Baraka recommitted his life and work to the self-determination of the African-American community and to the global struggle of oppressed peoples everywhere against Neo-Colonialism. As a poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and activist, Baraka’s indefatigable, fearless energy made him a galvanizing presence; his ability to rouse the ire of opponents on the far-right, liberal-left, and everything in between makes his passing earlier this year, at 79, an immeasurable loss to those who felt protected by his very existence. To honor him, this series brings together a selection of interviews, documentaries, and films that reflect, but can hardly hope to encapsulate, the dynamism and spirit of Amiri Baraka, an artist and cultural leader beyond all epithets.
Baraka also features in THE BREATH COURSES THROUGH US, a new documentary about the New York Art Quartet that we’ll be premiering immediately following this series, on Sun, May 18 at 7:30.
Organized by Michael Chaiken, Andrew Lampert, and Jed Rapfogel. Special thanks to Woodie King, Jr.; Haden Guest, Liz Coffey, and Amy Sloper (Harvard Film Archive); Livia Bloom (Icarus Films); Chris Calhoun; Frazer Pennebaker (Pennebaker-Hegedus Films); Ruby & Lukas Perrson; Winter Shanck and Joe Basile (Channel 13/WNET); Helen Silfven (Moyers Media); Nick Tosches; Todd Wiener & Steven Hill (UCLA); and Jonas Mekas.
Anthony Harvey
DUTCHMAN
1967, 55 min, 35mm, b&w. With Al Freeman Jr. & Shirley Knight.
Premiering in March 1964, DUTCHMAN won Baraka an Obie Award, the most prestigious distinction given to an off-Broadway production. Made into a film three years later, the play’s action concerns the relationship between Clay, a Black man from the aspiring middle class, and Lula, a blonde seductress of unknown origin whose infernal presence hints at the lower depths. DUTCHMAN is an allegory, one whose power derives from Baraka’s mastery of poetic language and prophetic insight into the political and spiritual turmoil to come (for Baraka and the nation as a whole) after the assassination of Malcolm X.
Preceded by:
Ben Caldwell MEDEA 1973, 7 min, 16mm-to-digital. Digibeta transfer of a 16mm print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
“A collage piece made on an animation stand and edited entirely in-camera, MEDEA combines live action and rapidly-edited still images of Africans and African Americans which function like flashes of history that the unborn child will inherit. Caldwell invokes Baraka’s poem ‘Part of the Doctrine’ in this experimental meditation on art history, Black imagery, identity, and heritage.” –Allyson Nadia Field, UCLA
Marie Menken LITA’S PARTY 1964, 4 min, 16mm
excerpt from LOST LOST LOST (Jonas Mekas, 1976)
Images of LeRoi Jones during his wild, inchoate days in Greenwich Village. Jones was a contemporary of Allen Ginsberg, Hubert Selby, Jr., and Diane di Prima, and his “Beat period” coincided with the publication of his first volume of poetry, PREFACE TO A TWENTY VOLUME SUICIDE NOTE (1961), which includes “A Poem Welcoming Jonas Mekas to America,” and his landmark study of Black American music BLUES PEOPLE (1963).
Total running time: ca. 80 min.
Thurs, May 15 at 7:30 and Sat, May 17 at 9:00.
LeRoi Jones
THE NEW-ARK
1968, 60 min, 16mm-to-digital. Digitized by Anthology Film Archives from the collection of Harvard Film Archive.
The second film Jones scripted and directed (the first, BLACK SPRING, from 1967, is believed lost) came at the invitation of the Public Broadcast Laboratory. This largely unseen documentary, an invocation of the teachings of Maulana Karenga and the politics of Black Cultural Nationalism, was shot entirely in Jones’s birthplace, Newark, NJ, where, in 1965, he relocated from Harlem. Scenes inside The Spirit House theater-school, the base of operation for Jones’s Black Arts movement of the late 1960s and early 70s, are intercut with shots of a community’s struggle for organization and self-determination after the devastating riots of 1967. The film was directed shortly before Jones converted to Islam and adopted the Bantuized Arabic name Imamu (‘spiritual leader’) Ameer (‘prince’) Baraka (‘blessed’), which he would later alter to Amiri Baraka.
Al Levin THE BARAKA STATEMENT 1975, 15 min, video
Excerpted from the news digest program “The 51st State: A Trains, Atoms and Apples”, Baraka here reads from his work and, in an interview, definitively renounces separatism, speaks of the troubles continuing to face his native Newark, and articulates the Third World Marxist ideology he adopted in the mid-1970s.
Preceded by:
An excerpt from ONE P.M. (Jean-Luc Godard, D.A. Pennebaker & Richard Leacock, 1972)
In November 1968, Jean-Luc Godard, with the assistance of D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock, came to America to document what he believed was the impending sequel to the American Revolution. This excerpt, filmed outside of Baraka’s Spirit House at 33 Stirling Street in Newark, NJ, sees Baraka and the Spirit House Movers, an ever-evolving group of actors, poets, and musicians, running the voodoo down on white America and, by extension, one very befuddled pro-Chinese Swiss filmmaker.
Total running time: ca. 90 min.
Fri, May 16 at 7:00 and Sun, May 18 at 5:00.
St. Clair Bourne
AMIRI BARAKA: IN MOTION
1983, 60 min, video
Set in Newark, Greenwich Village, and Harlem, this documentary follows Baraka in the days leading up to his 1983 trial for “resisting arrest” and serves as a clear statement of the personal and ideological changes that, at the dawn of the 1980s, informed his work. Bourne visits Baraka at his home preparing for the American Writers Congress, teaching a college class at Columbia, hosting a jazz radio show, reading poetry, and speaking at an anti-apartheid rally.
SOUNDS OF POETRY: POET AMIRI BARAKA 1999, 26 min, video
Produced and directed by journalist Bill Moyers, this episode of the SOUNDS OF POETRY series features readings and conversations with Baraka at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, where the author, at 65, discusses his inspirations, writing, and ever-evolving politics.
“Somebody Blew Up America?” 2009, 9 min, video
In July 2002, Baraka was appointed Poet Laureate of New Jersey. A year later, owing no small part to public readings of this, his 9/11 opus, New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, unable to legally extract Baraka from the post, abolished the position. This reading, recorded live on February 21, 2009 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY, sees Baraka accompanied by saxophonist Rob Brown, reciting the much-debated poem, a refutation of slavery, terrorism, and the accepted facts of September 11, 2001.
Total running time: ca. 100 min.
Fri, May 16 at 9:00.
FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
Woodie King, Jr.
BLACK THEATER: THE MAKING OF A MOVEMENT
1976/77, 114 min, 16mm
Documenting the birth of a new theater out of the Civil Rights activism of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, King’s film is a veritable encyclopedia of the leading figures, institutions, and events of a movement that transformed the American stage. Amiri Baraka, Ossie Davis, James Earl Jones, and Ntozake Shange describe their aspirations for a theater serving the Black community. Excerpts from A RAISIN IN THE SUN, BLACK GIRL, DUTCHMAN, and FOR COLORED GIRLS... reveal how these actors and playwrights laid the basis for a contemporary theater unbound by race.
Sat, May 17 at 4:00.
OPEN END: ‘NORMAN MAILER VS. LEROI JONES’
1966, 50 min, video. Produced by David Susskind.
…or The White Negro vs. The Black Nationalist. This episode of David Susskind’s OPEN END, titled “The Negro Revolution,” sees a radicalized Jones facing off against author and intellectual gadfly Norman Mailer. The two discuss a broad range of topics (the history of slavery, Lyndon Johnson, technology) but it’s Jones who holds the floor, parrying with Susskind and Mailer as he portents, in no uncertain terms, the coming of the Black Power movement.
SOUL!: BARAKA, THE ARTIST 1972, 52 min, digital
A landmark entertainment-variety-talk show, which aired on New York’s WNET Channel 13, SOUL! was not only a vehicle to promote African-American artistry, community, and culture, but also a platform for political expression and the fight for social justice. It showcased classic live musical performances from funk, soul, jazz, and world musicians, and featured in-depth, extraordinary interviews with political, sports, literary figures, and more. This episode, dedicated entirely to the artistry of Amiri Baraka, sees host Ellis Haizlip discussing with Baraka the politics of Pan-Africanism and developments within the Black Arts movement, interspersed with Baraka reading from his work. Recorded and broadcast live on November 8, 1972.
Sat, May 17 at 6:30.
