If Beale Street Could Talk

Misty eyed and enveloped in the soul­ful cov­er of ​‘My Coun­try Tis of Thee’ that plays over the end cred­its of If Beale Street Could Talk, I was swept up into a vision. I imag­ined Jim­my in St Paul de Vence at his type­writer, know­ing that no amount of dis­tance can quell the calls from home.

And so he wrote and wrote, con­nect­ing him­self to the smells and sounds of the Harlem in which he had come of age. I hap­pened to be miles away from the City myself, also in France, miss­ing my fam­i­ly. Much in the way writ­ing ​‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ became a por­tal to home for James Bald­win, watch­ing this new film ver­sion became a por­tal to home for me. Upon see­ing the crease of con­cern in Sharon’s eye­brows, I saw my own mother’s face. The face of a woman who knows her baby bet­ter than she knows her­self. A matri­arch tasked with hold­ing it all togeth­er. I saw the sounds of my own com­mu­ni­ty, felt the warmth of my own home, and felt thankful.

If Beale Street Could Talk recounts the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of a young cou­ple in love, Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Fon­ny Hunt (Stephan James) and their sur­round­ing fam­i­lies as they seek to prove Fonny’s inno­cence after he’s false­ly accused of rape. There’s over­lap in the bio­graph­i­cal details of both Tish and I, who feels like a ver­sion of my Nana in her youth, myself a ver­sion of her. See­ing her father, Joseph Rivers (Col­man Domin­go), in his work uni­form, made me think of my own – both blue col­lar men who pro­vide for their fam­i­lies by bend­ing and lift­ing, clock­ing in, clock­ing out.

The embrace and slow dance in the liv­ing room between Joseph and Sharon (Regi­na King) is a chris­ten­ing of some sort, show­cas­ing the inti­ma­cy and love that flows through their house­hold. Sud­den­ly I felt I had tak­en for grant­ed all those fin­ger snap­ping two steps I saw my par­ents share. I laughed to myself when they break out the good liquor, Hen­nessy, to cel­e­brate Tish’s good news.

When films like If Beale Street Could Talk are released there is always the ques­tion of uni­ver­sal­i­ty. Peo­ple clam­our to remind us that the spe­cif­ic can be uni­ver­sal, that we’ve all loved or have fam­i­ly, but I won­der if that con­sid­er­a­tion is even pro­duc­tive. Does it have to be uni­ver­sal? Props, ges­tures and lan­guage allow Jenk­ins to sig­ni­fy to a Black Amer­i­can audi­ence, the res­i­dents of our own Beale Streets the world over. For ​‘The Good Times’ by Al Green sound­track­ing famil­ial con­flict, or the ref­er­ences to play­ing num­bers (dol­lar straight, dol­lar box!).

In an inte­gral scene, Fon­ny and a child­hood friend, Daniel (Bri­an Tyree Hen­ry), chop it up over New­ports, the cig­a­rette of choice of the Daniel’s in my com­mu­ni­ty who keep one tucked behind their ear, loi­ter­ing the block in search of con­ver­sa­tion and cheap beer. And, like Daniel, they’ve been beat­en up by life, recov­er­ing from a bid or pure­ly down on their luck but liv­ing and breath­ing, which counts for some­thing. ​“This coun­try do not like nig­gas!” Fon­ny remarks. Who he telling? This authen­tic­i­ty places Jenk­ins’ work square­ly in a Black art­mak­ing tra­di­tion root­ed in the For Us, By Us ethos that’s exist­ed since our cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion first began.

It drove home for me the impor­tance of hav­ing a Black Amer­i­can direc­tor adapt Baldwin’s work (the first film adap­tion of his in Eng­lish). What Jenk­ins has craft­ed isn’t lack­ing in beau­ty. A lush colour palette, close-ups that reveal the inte­ri­or­i­ty of the char­ac­ters and sweep­ing strings that swell over dis­plays of affec­tion are all part of what makes Beale Street so com­pelling, but more than that is the pow­er of these sto­ry­tellers con­verg­ing. The film doesn’t linger too much in the trag­ic aspects of the sto­ry. Which would prob­a­bly be a chal­lenge for a less adept screenwriter.

It called to mind the lat­ter half of Nik­ki Giovanni’s (an inter­locu­tor of Baldwin’s) poem ​‘Nik­ki-Rosa’: ​“and I real­ly hope no white per­son ever has cause / to write about me / because they nev­er under­stand / Black love is Black wealth and they’ll / prob­a­bly talk about my hard child­hood / and nev­er under­stand that / all the while I was quite hap­py.” Some­thing that could eas­i­ly come spilling out of Alon­zo Jr’s (the son of Tish and Fon­ny) mouth when asked to recall his own child­hood in some dis­tant future. So much of life as a Black per­son in Amer­i­ca is push­ing up against the forces that seek to ren­der us invis­i­ble or dead. Depict­ing the nuance of that expe­ri­ence, not just the pain but also the joy, brings forth the hon­esty and com­plex­i­ty that I find myself in search of in the art that seeks to rep­re­sent me and mine.

In the age of auto­plays on footage of extra­ju­di­cial killings, not show­ing phys­i­cal vio­lence being inflict­ed upon Fon­ny is a wel­come choice. The use of still images through­out serves as a reminder that this sto­ry isn’t pure­ly fic­tion. Fon­ny looks straight at the cam­era: ​“Do you know what’s hap­pen­ing to me? In here?!” The bruis­es on his face and his blood­shot eye answer half of that ques­tion, leav­ing the view­er to use their imag­i­na­tion to con­jure up the rest.

In this way, the film indicts you and I. If you gen­uine­ly haven’t a clue, then you’ve been in the dark about the world in which we live and how the prison indus­tri­al com­plex thrives on the pain of folks like Fon­ny. How­ev­er, for any­one else, we empathise. We know what’s hap­pen­ing to him in there and what are we to do about it?

As the sto­ry unfolds, we watch as every­one involved attempts to do some­thing. Mr Rivers and Mr Hunt join forces the best way they know how: to hus­tle their way into more mon­ey ahead of Fonny’s tri­al. Tish’s sis­ter Ernes­tine (Tey­on­ah Par­ris) stays on top of the lawyer and book­keep­ing while Sharon takes a sojourn to Puer­to Rico, hop­ing to come back to Amer­i­ca with the truth to set them all free. Tish is try­ing to keep her mind, body and spir­it healthy as she goes through her preg­nan­cy, while also try­ing to hold her man down. We only ever see her going up to vis­it him. It becomes her job to relay news about him to the family.

There’s a scene in the Bank Street base­ment apart­ment in which Tish and Fon­ny have made their home. Daniel has joined them for din­ner. After say­ing grace, the three break bread and the sounds of Nina Simone’s ​‘That’s All I Ask’ echo the sen­ti­ments of Tish’s love: ​“I wouldn’t ask you to hold back the light of dawn, baby / that’s too much to ask to any­one / All that I ask is your lov­ing ways / And I’ll keep you hap­py for the rest of your nat­ur­al born days, baby.” The music height­ens, lov­ing glances and laugh­ter exchanged. It sud­den­ly dawns on me that Tish is ask­ing for so lit­tle. She has her depart­ment store job, and her fam­i­ly, and her baby on the way, and all she wants is her man to com­plete the life that she’s build­ing. And even that seems unattainable.

I’ve come to realise that this sto­ry is about more than love, as love is inevitable. Ms Hunt loves her son in the only way she knows how, through the gospel. Frank doesn’t love any­one in the world more than he loves Fon­ny, for he tells us so. Ernes­tine, Joseph and Sharon all wrap their arms around Tish in sev­er­al scenes; a ges­ture of both love and pro­tec­tion. And we already know Tish and Fon­ny are a unit; soul­mates. What a won­der­ful thing love is. It’s what keeps us buoy­ant while we help­less­ly watch our fam­i­ly, friends and lovers attempt to stay afloat under the weight of an oppres­sive system.

The tears I cried weren’t because I was in awe at the fact that the ten­der­ness and warmth shared by the two tran­scends the glass divid­ing them, but rather that there is a bar­ri­er there in the first place. While love may be one thing, hope is some­thing else entire­ly. Tish and Fonny’s boy is the embod­i­ment of hope. The fact that Fon­ny nev­er los­es the light in his eyes speaks to the tra­di­tion of keep­ing the faith in the midst of such unfair cir­cum­stances, as one does to sur­vive. To lose hope would be, in no uncer­tain terms, to die; lit­er­al­ly and figuratively.