LWLies 78: If Beale Street Could Talk – On Sale Now!

When you read James Baldwin’s 1974 nov­el, ​‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, pri­mal images leap from the page. This Harlem-set tale offers a bristling snap­shot of youth­ful romance dashed against the rocks of a legal frame­work weighed in favour of afflu­ent white folk. Fon­ny and Tish are mad­ly in love, but he has been arrest­ed on a bum rap and is fight­ing for a future which, he dis­cov­ers, will include a baby.

Bar­ry Jenk­ins approach­es the work of his lit­er­ary hero with a del­i­cate yet deci­sive touch, pro­duc­ing an unspeak­ably mov­ing (and stealth­ily polit­i­cal) love sto­ry in which tragedy and tri­umph jos­tle for suprema­cy. In this issue, we spoke to Jenk­ins about the mam­moth task of trans­pos­ing Baldwin’s prose to the big screen.

On the cover…

A por­trait of Kiki Layne by Bijou Kar­man, an artist and illus­tra­tor from Los Ange­les. Unique faces, strong women, nos­tal­gia, flo­ra and the Cal­i­for­nia land­scape all inspire her work. The styles of the ear­ly 1970s fig­ure heav­i­ly into Karman’s reper­toire, so If Beale Street Could Talk was a nat­ur­al pick for her. She enjoys paint­ing vin­tage pat­terns, fash­ion and hair­styles just like Tish’s look in the film. Bijou hand paint­ed the cov­er, cre­at­ing an image that evokes the sad but beau­ti­ful feel­ing of the film.

Artists fea­tured in this issue include…

Lau­rène Boglio, Jude Labu­ca, Nick Tay­lor, Sophie Mo and Simon Hayes, with pho­tog­ra­phy by Liz Seabrook.

Inside this issue…

On If Beale Street Could Talk
Tayler Mon­tague offers a per­son­al reflec­tion on Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ lat­est opus.

In My Heart: A con­ver­sa­tion with Bar­ry Jenk­ins
The Oscar-win­ning writer/​director explains how he cracked James Bald­win with his won­der­ful new film, If Beale Street Could Talk.

This Is Love
Kei­th Uhlich writes in praise of James Baldwin’s vol­ume of poet­ic film crit­i­cism, ​‘The Dev­il Finds Work’.

On the Shoul­ders of Giants
Actor Col­man Domin­go on how he fell hard for the writ­ings of James Baldwin.

A The­o­ry of Black Aes­thet­ics
RaMell Ross, the direc­tor of Hale Coun­ty This Morn­ing, This Evening, offers a new way to cap­ture black lives on film.

Jour­neys spe­cial: Indie Mem­phis
Gabrielle Ralam­bo-Rajeri­son charts a bold new direc­tion for this South­ern cel­e­bra­tion of mod­ern indie cinema.

Harlem Shuf­fle
Accom­pa­ny Mark Asch on a whirl­wind tour through the cin­e­mat­ic streets of Harlem, NYC.

Soul Music Selec­tions
Ten supreme­ly soul­ful wax plat­ters and how they made their way to the movie screen, as select­ed by Car­o­line Golum

Nicholas Britell: Track by Track
The com­pos­er tells the sto­ry of his If Beale Street Could Talk and Moon­light soundtracks.

Fly Posters
We delve into the Sep­a­rate Cin­e­ma Archive to look at a selec­tion of Amer­i­can movie posters from the ear­ly 1970s.

Threads
Christi­na New­land looks at the impor­tance of the icon­ic prison jump­suit on film.

In the back section…

Han­nah Wood­head exam­ines the tragi­com­ic per­sona of actor Steve Carell ahead of the release of Beau­ti­ful Boy; Sophie Monks Kauf­man chats with actor and per­fumer Richard E Grant for his role in Can You Ever For­give Me?; Manuela Laz­ic meets Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal to dis­cuss the nuances of good female char­ac­ters and her new film, The Kinder­garten Teacher; Matt Thrift meets Kore­an auteur Lee Chang-dong ahead of his mes­meris­ing psy­chodra­ma, Burn­ing; Rowan Woods talks pol­i­tics and sto­ry­telling with Maher­sha­la Ali ahead of his road movie Green Book; and Adam Wood­ward gets the low-down on Joe Cornish’s new film The Kid Who Would Be King from the man himself.

Plus, reviews of all the key releas­es of Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary 2019, a chron­i­cle of a vis­it to the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion HQ in New York City, Jaime Christ­ley and David Jenk­ins pick offer some home enter­tain­ment picks, while Adam Wood­ward reports back on his dis­cov­er­ies from the Mum­bai Film Festival.

LWLies 78 is on gen­er­al sale 8 Jan­u­ary. Sub­scribe today and get every new issue deliv­ered straight to your door.