Musings on Baldwin

About Beale Street

James Baldwin’s short book The Devil Finds Work is largely unknown. This book-length essay is a cumulative collection of various film reviews. These reviews are unique to the realm of film reviews because they are written through Baldwin’s experiences (as an adult and child) and through a critique of race in American cinema. At the end of The Devil Finds Work, Baldwin ends with his critique of The Exorcist. Here, Baldwin’s famous love rhetoric prevails:

To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and, if I can respect this, both of us can live. Neither of us, truly, can live without the other: a statement which would not sound so banal if one were not endlessly compelled to repeat it, and, further, believe it, and act on that belief.¹

This ideology is pervasive in most of Baldwin’s other texts. He believes that people must trust themselves and others to find love. More importantly, love and vulnerability are a medium through which people can heal. Baldwin’s writing overtly rejects most social identifiers or coalition groups as a response to racism in America. Understanding how Baldwin understood and perceived race in America is important to the interpretation of If Beale Street Could Talk.