If Beale Street Could Talk: James Baldwin (Penguin Modern Classics)

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If Beale Street Could Talk began a limited release in the United States on December 14, 2018, with an expanded release on December 25. It had previously been scheduled for November 30, 2018. [19] The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2018. [20] It also screened at the New York Film Festival on October 11, 2018, the New Orleans Film Festival on October 21, 2018, [21] [22] and the St. Louis International Film Festival on November 10, 2018. There's real pain and despair contained in the book; there's a section where Fonny and Tish meet up with Daniel, one of Fonny's old friends, and Daniel tells them what happened to him in prison (where he was sent after his own trumped-up charge). But there's just as much goodness. One sequence in which a young landlord agrees to rent a loft (Fonny is a sculptor) to the pair exudes warmth and affection. (He's Jewish; he knows they're in love and discriminated against.) For the record: I'm a big Regina King fan. How about you? Regina King played Mrs. Rivers, not Mrs. Hunt.)

Last summer I read Baldwin’s novel, Giovanni’s Room. It was my first encounter with his writing, and he immediately soared to my favorite author list based on that one book alone. The stunning prose left no doubt in my mind that I would read and love everything he had to offer. This book is much different from that one. The writing is unadorned, less lyrical. Yet, it is powerful and immediate and remarkable in its own way. It works, and I was once again impressed. sense, smaller human unity will become more and more important. Those who are without them, like Fonny's friend Daniel, will probably not survive. Certainly they will not reproduce themselves. Fonny's real crime is "having For Baldwin, the injustice of Fonny's situation is self-evident, and by no means unique: "Whoever discovered America deserved to be dragged home, in chains, to die," Tish's mother declares near the conclusionThis section gives us lots of information about Tish as a narrator. We get a clear picture of the limits of Tish's point-of-view in this section. She is the sole first-person narrator of the work, which means that what we read is limited to what she sees and knows. Her limited knowledge about those around her is evident in her scene with Mr. Hunt in the tailor shop, as he knows exactly what she needs, and yet he is an enigma to her. "I thought he looked at me in a real strange way," she reveals soon after she walked in (12). Similarly, Tish responds in confusion when Mr. Hunt answers her unspoken question about Fonny's whereabouts: "I heard what he said, and I understood—something; but I didn't know what it was I understood (13). Fortunately, Tish's narration works in such a way that she does not allow her knowledge from the present to change her memory of the past. For example, even though Fonny has teeth in his mouth in the present, she notes that "anyone watching Fonny then was sure that he'd grow up without a single tooth in his head" (14). Finally, Tish's narration style still shows the self-awareness that we traced earlier in this guide. When talking about Mrs. Hunt, Tish assures her readers, "we're going to talk about her in a minute" (15). Tish is a conscientious story-teller who has the ability and the responsibility to construct a narrative that is as close to the truth as possible. When Fonny’s family arrives, a palpable tension arises. Part of this is due to the fact that Frank and his wife are constantly at odds, since Mrs. Hunt is a judgmental and very strict religious woman, whereas he’s a heavy-drinking man who resents her. When Tish finally tells the Hunts that she’s pregnant, Frank is overcome with happiness and tells Joseph they should celebrate in the bars. Mrs. Hunt, on the other hand, condescendingly asks Tish who will be “responsible” for the child, and when Tish says she and Fonny will take care of the baby, she says, “I always knew that you would be the destruction of my son. You have a demon in you—I always knew it. [...] The Holy Ghost will cause that child to shrivel in your womb.” As she says this, she advances upon Tish, but Frank stands and slaps her to the floor. Standing above her, he laughs as everyone worries about her feeble heart. “I think you’ll find it’s still pumping,” he says. “But I wouldn’t call it a heart.” He and Joseph then leave (though Joseph is hesitant), and Tish, Ernestine, and Sharon argue with Fonny’s mother and two sisters, all of whom resent him for getting arrested even though everyone knows he’s innocent. At one point, Sharon reminds Mrs. Hunt that Tish is pregnant with her grandchild, saying that it doesn’t make any “difference” “how it gets here.” After a venomous exchange of words, Mrs. Hunt and her daughters leave.

Tish visits Fonny in jail as he awaits trial and reveals to him that she is pregnant with their baby. Fonny is excited to be a father, but saddened that the birth might be while he is still behind bars. Later, Tish tells her parents, Sharon and Joseph, and sister, Ernestine, about her pregnancy. Though worried for her, Tish's family is supportive and decide to invite Fonny's family over to share the news. Americans’ idea of Baldwin is often limited to this decade—the 1960s—perhaps because no other U.S. writer embodies that period better than he does. Although he had published an impressive set of works in the ’50s, it was the release of the novel Another Country (1962) and the two essays that make up The Fire Next Time (1963) that solidified his reputation as one of America’s preeminent writers and public intellectuals. In these civil-rights-era works, Baldwin was keen on interrogating white power and championing love to realize the full promise of America. Tish has to be strong for Fonny, their baby, and herself. She has a strong support system in her parents and sister Ernestine, who are all as happy as can be for Tish to get married and start a family. We find out that Ernestine is a social worker and has connections in the white world, which will factor greatly in Fonny’s case. Procuring a respectable white lawyer as well as working for an actress who is sympathetic to their cause, it is Ernestine who shoulders most of Tish’s burden. Yet despite their being nine characters, the entire point of view is told through Tish. She alternates between her relationship with Fonny, then being completely in love and in tune with one another in body and soul, and the tense present time, where he is in jail and she spends every ounce of her being to get him out. At age nineteen, it is obvious that Baldwin has created a character in Tish who is wise beyond her years.I sought out this book because I had seen Barry Jenkins's (Moonlight) film adaptation a few months ago (it gets a general release soon). I was curious about the rapturous, romantic tone of the movie. Why wasn't there more about the false charge? What happened to the racist cop? To do much is to have the power to place these people where they are [prison], and keep them where they are. There are murderers outside, and rapists, with their hands full with all they have to do, doing much; thieves, true perverts, college boys carrying attache cases, busy, busy, doing much. Torturers, doing much. Bishops, priests, and preachers, doing much. Statesmen, doing more. These captive men are the hidden price for a hidden and dreadful terror: the righteous must be able to locate the damned. To do much is to have the power and the necessity to dictate to the damned. If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 American romantic drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins and based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name. It stars an ensemble cast that includes KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Michael Beach, Dave Franco, Diego Luna, Pedro Pascal, Ed Skrein, Brian Tyree Henry, and Regina King. The film follows a young woman who, with her family's support, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly charged lover and prove his innocence before the birth of their child.