Y’all—
I wept.
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I could not believe what I was watching.
Tory Devon Smith did something I thought was impossible—in eight minutes, he managed to capture the delicate idiosyncrasies of James Baldwin.
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All of them, bruh. 😲
From the slightly forward head movements when Baldwin was in the zone of making his aims crystal clear…
…to the way he hardly blinked during rousing conversation. Rather, he raised his eyebrows and shifted his eyes from side to side as if he was leaning in to emphasize each syllable of every word because he was that exacting.
To the way he relaxed his hands and used the plethora of facial and other bodily expressions that were uniquely James Baldwin.
Incredible work and dedication. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
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“The Baldwin Archives” is a short film set in London 1963 starring actor, producer, writer, and future Academy Award-winner Tory Devon Smith (Baldwin) and Jordan Gavaris (BBC journalist Peter Duval Smith), who interviews the prolific author and activist about the impacts of racism on American negroes.
Aside from Smith and Gavaris’ awesome performances, my favorite elements of the short were the screenplay, lighting manipulations, and cinematography.
The setting reminded me of “My Dinner with Andre” (1981) and parts of “Frost/Nixon” (2008), but not only in that it features a conversation between two subjects, but more in that the elements were balanced.
The editing was a main character. The journalist knows of Baldwin’s legendary career and is familiar with his political perspective on American values, and that he’s since left the states to live in France. Peter challenges James’ writings and wanted to better understand what great difference there was between White and Black people, which was not a singularly American issue, as Baldwin mentioned. Through the precise editing applied, the audience can feel the seriousness in Baldwin’s eyes and the perceived cognizance in Smith’s.
I enjoyed the direction and cinematography, especially during the first-third of the film via initial close-up shots of the subjects followed by a series of mid-shots with the warm forward downward-angled lighting on the two characters’ profiles. (C’est magnifique!)
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At around the 2:50-minute mark, there’s a remarkable establishing shot of both subjects that feels like a tempo reset, an effectual and nuanced mood balancer.
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Another intriguing aspect is that I did not know if this short was based on a reenactment of an actual interview, and that may be why it’s captivating. If I were to remove the picture and allow only the audio to play, my father (an avid James Baldwin historian) and my purist friends would bet schmoney they were listening to a recording of Mr. Baldwin, and this speaks precisely to Tory Devon Smith’s immense talent.
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Future Oscar-winner Tory Devin Smith scares me, bruh.
It ain’t nothing like experiencing the work of artists who not only puncture into the depths of a character, or a screenplay, or a photograph, but who also insist on adding their own seasoning to the gumbo. 🥘
The series of beautifully edited high close-up shots of the characters during the last few minutes of the film were chef’s kiss—felt like a serious game of hopscotch or table tennis with film elements supplementing each other.
A mighty feat, but y’all pulled it off.
Phenomenal short. You did it, Laura Seay! 👏🏾👏🏾
More, please. ☺️