A FINE PAIRING
Respecting James Baldwin’s legacy was tops for ‘Beale Street’s’ Barry Jenkins
TORONTO — James Baldwin means different things to different people.
To some, Baldwin is the prototype of the artist as activist, his writing an example of how to battle injustice and prejudice against blacks in America. To others, he’s one of the foremost purveyors of the black experience, his mastery of language precisely capturing what life was, and is, like for African Americans in an oppressive society.
Those two aspects are forcefully represented in Baldwin’s 1974 novel “If Beale Street Could Talk,” noted Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning filmmaker of “Moonlight,” and a reason why he wanted to adapt the book for the screen.
“Mr. Baldwin has many different modes,” Jenkins said. “One of those modes is the protest, the anger. And then there’s the lush, the romantic, the hopeful. I think with ‘If Beale Street Could Talk,’ you find the best pairing and balancing of those two things. It was a challenge worth undertaking.”
“Beale Street” is a love story centered on a young Harlem couple, Tish and Fonny, played, respectively, by newcomer KiKi Layne and Stephan James (“Selma,” “Race”). When Fonny is arrested after being falsely accused of rape, a newly pregnant Tish, along with her family, scrambles to prove his innocence.
Regina King, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Aunjanue Ellis and Brian Tyree Henry also star in the picture,
which will hit U.S. theaters Nov. 30.
The Times sat down with Jenkins after the movie’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss “Beale Street’s” early reception, how he secured the rights to the Baldwin book before his “Moonlight” breakout and how a number of pivotal scenes might be received by audiences in the #MeToo era.
Why “Beale Street,” of all of Baldwin’s works?
A friend who I really trusted gave me the book and said, “Have you read this?” I was shocked that I hadn’t. And she said, as a person I trust, “You should read it, and I think you should make a movie of it.” Now, people say that all the time — even back then [before “Moonlight”], when I didn’t have any real access. But I read it and I thought she was right. There was something about the love between Tish and Fonny that just grabbed me, and how that rhymes with the love between Sharon [played by King] and Joseph [played by Domingo] and, of course, all this [stuff] that Tish and Fonny have to go through. It just seemed really rich. And I thought, “If I was going to tackle Baldwin, this is the one thing I could do now with my skills.”
Baldwin’s estate is notorious for saying no to everyone who wants to adapt James Baldwin. But you got them to say yes.
Actually, Jake Gyllenhaal is kind of one of the reasons this happened. He’s a big Baldwin fan, and he had been talking to the estate, went through the channels and got them to respond to his queries about another project. And then I just happened to write them a letter, literally, the next day. And a woman at the estate — not Baldwin’s sister Gloria Karefa-Smart, who runs it — but the woman who runs all the official documentation, she said, “Well, I felt kinda bad because we were listening to Jake Gyllenhaal, and we don’t ever want to be the kind of estate that only listens to famous people” — I was nobody at the time — “so when your package came through, we were like, ‘We might as well listen to this guy named Barry Jenkins.’ ” And here we are.
Talk to me about your decision to cast KiKi Layne and Stephan James as the leads. Some have already questioned James, saying he’s too attractive, when compared to the character in the book.
I get where they’re coming from. The way Tish and Fonny are described in the book is different than how they look on-screen, especially Fonny. He’s lightskinned in the book — there’s this dynamic of colorism that we went away from because Stephan James was the best actor who came through the door. But when I’m writing characters, I don’t see the actor. I’m hoping an actor will walk in and reveal the character to me. Both KiKi and Stephan did that. They both taped, and in their tapes, I saw. It started to make sense to me, and I wasn’t concerned with whether Stephan was cute or not cute. He just seemed to be Fonny.
Baldwin has a particular grasp of language in how he captures the human experience, and, in particular, the black experience. Pre-premiere, you told me that the blackest scene of the movie involves the women of the film saying a lot of things that some might say are graphic or distasteful.
They are saying a lot of things, things that were written by James Baldwin. [laughs]
And you kept them in, despite how audiences might respond to them. Why?
I wasn’t interested in trying to translate the script from the ’70s to present day. I also wasn’t interested in curbing Baldwin’s words, the language. I felt like the things he was speaking to were authentic to the time, and authentic to today, to be honest. I’ve sat around with my family and seen some arguments pop off and heard things said very similar to what’s said in this book and film.
That scene is immediately preceded by an instance of domestic violence, but it plays in a comedic way to audiences. It felt real to me, but was confounding to some.
It’s almost like watching “Friday,” when [Chris Tucker as Smokey] says, “You just got knocked the ... out!” [laughs] And look, Baldwin wrote this, and I think he knew what he was doing. I think he knew where the language was going, and honestly, when you’re on set, people aren’t laughing… But I think it’s totally OK and totally fine for the audience to go, “That’s ridiculous” and “That ... is hilarious” and “Oh, no, she didn’t!”
You mentioned the scene with Brian Tyree Henry as Fonny’s friend Daniel Carty, which I find to be one of the least talked about so far, but perhaps the most beautiful. To see these two black men being intimate with each other, we still don’t see that a lot.
That scene could be 15 minutes if it wanted to be. Right now, it’s like 11 or 12 minutes. But we filmed it over the course of a day, and to me, it’s about how Daniel has already been through the experience that Fonny, theoretically, is going through over the process of the film. I think, sometimes, when two men meet — and I’ll go down further and say when two black men meet — you always have to present that you’re good. But most often, we’re not good. I love that over the course of this day, you see the two young men negotiate each other and slowly start to reveal themselves and let their guards down to the point where they are so comforted by each other’s compassion that they can reveal their full selves.
And then there’s the rape story line. The rendering of it in the film, as it is in the book, is complex. Considering the film is coming out as we’re having all of these #MeToo-related conversations, did that give you any concern?
It did and it didn’t. We shot this film in October and November of last year, so it was right when all the Harvey Weinstein stuff was happening. But with everything in the adaptation, it was about a fidelity to the source material. I felt like Baldwin had done such a great job of also showing compassion for that character, Victoria Rogers. He could’ve very easily made her a Caucasian woman. Instead, he made her a Puerto Rican woman, I think, because how close can you get to the American dream but not have it be your dream, one you can obtain, than being Puerto Rican? — as we saw with the president going down there after the hurricane and shooting paper towels as a sign of help.
In a way, the system is the antagonist in this film, because whoever did assault this woman is still out there somewhere, and because this ... cop has it in for Fonny, we’re never going to know who that person actually is. I think it’s a film where everybody is allowed to present themselves and nobody is judged, not by the film or Mr. Baldwin at least.
Everyone seems to have, and have had, expectations based off of “Moonlight.” Was there any pressure or nervousness for you?
No. I wrote these at the same time, and so they’ve always been a pair to me, and the process of making them has been in motion for so long. I actually hoped to make this before “Moonlight.” They’re separate, but the same, and I think this is not a reaction to “Moonlight.” It’s a reaction to that time when I was obsessed with both of these stories. I don’t know what people expected or are expecting. The movie is a thing unto itself, and I tried to make it in the voice it demanded to be made.