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Turkish filmmaker and photographer Sedat Pakay designs an intimate, luminous sketch of Baldwin during a stay in Istanbul. As he leisurely moves about the comforts of his room to the activity of the city and its curious denizens, Baldwin expounds on his privacy, his sexuality and his expat tendencies—explaining that he writes more easily about the US when he is away from it. Heightened by Linda and Sonny Sharrock’s transcendent soundtrack, the film is a beautiful glimpse of a vibrant, conscientious man with a mind that seems always active, contemplative and open. “I don’t really know what I am politically speaking,” he notes. “I don’t consider myself to be a leader; I consider myself to be a kind of witness …”

Preserved by the Yale Film Archive with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

An unusual entry in the Baldwin documentaries, this short film is a vital document for reasons the filmmakers had not intended. When the white British director narrates that his subject has inexplicably become “less cooperative,” viewers soon realize why. Instead of exposing the difficult demeanor of the cultural icon, Dixon instead reveals his own patronizing, preconceived attempt to generically, romantically package the complex, perceptive author/activist. Dixon winds up documenting just the type of encounter Baldwin undoubtedly endured all the time, and more importantly, he records Baldwin’s grace and brilliance under such fire. More relaxed among a group of young Black admirers in the studio of Beauford Delaney, Baldwin responds to his new audience with reflections obviously directed at the filmmakers who fail to comprehend a life in the crosshairs. “When I left my country,” Baldwin explains, “I left it because I knew I was going to be murdered there.” In the final interview, the director embarks on an arrogant interrogation with a series of leading questions that Baldwin slashes to ribbons in midair with a confident clarity and defiance.

Picture and audio restoration by Mark Rance, Watchmaker Films, London.

When you try to stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here… you have attacked the entire power structure of the western world.

Filmmaker and photographer Horace Ové, who would also become the first Black director to make a feature film in the UK, documented this talk by James Baldwin at the West Indian Student Centre in London. Accompanied by comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, Baldwin focuses his impassioned, candid speech on Black identity and the Black experience, before taking no-nonsense questions from a largely Black audience. Moments of levity are interspersed with lively, thoughtful exchange and piercing observations. The explicit title is taken from Baldwin’s opening story detailing a white man’s frustration with Baldwin’s claim to be American born; instead, the man is seeking Baldwin’s admission that he is somehow African. “My entry into America was a bill of sale,” Baldwin explains. “And that stops you from going any further.”

Restoration courtesy of the British Film Institute.