"It's a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity." - William DuBois ("The Souls of Black Folk")
Journalist John Griffin published "Black Like Me" in 1961. The book detailed Griffin's six-week experience posing as a black man whilst travelling across the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The book would be adapted for the screen in 1964. Written and directed by Carl and Gerda Lerner – notable civil rights activists, communists and historians – this adaptation starred James Whitmore as Griffin.
"Black Like Me" works as an interesting time capsule. We're taken down real 1960s streets and into real Southern towns, homes, shops and dance-halls. It's a bit like looking at a Gordon Parks photo-album (a notable black photographer famous for his portraits of Southern life), albeit without the compositional power.
Elsewhere the film offers several interesting, politically charged vignettes, like scenes in which black characters articulate their self-hatred, their shame, or explain the cunning tactics necessary for survival. One car ride finds Griffin encountering a man who has sex with black women to "purify inferior bloodlines", whilst another sees him encountering a white academic with a fondness for scientific racism. Other scenes point to the various forms of prejudice, bigotry and socioeconomic marginalisation habitually experienced by blacks.
Years after his book was published, Griffin was dragged from his car and beaten by white attackers who accused him of being a "race traitor". His book, powerful and well written, would anticipate the "non-fiction novel" genre, a genre Truman Capote is usually (wrongfully) credited with founding. Unfotunately little in "Black Like Me" (1964) approaches the quality of Griffin's novel. The film's didactic, polemical aspects are not a problem - indeed, the film is at its best when being polemical - but these qualities are constantly undermined by an intrusive flashback structure, a lethargic script, and a plot which wastes too much time on Griffin's "white" home life.
6/10 - Worth one viewing.
Journalist John Griffin published "Black Like Me" in 1961. The book detailed Griffin's six-week experience posing as a black man whilst travelling across the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The book would be adapted for the screen in 1964. Written and directed by Carl and Gerda Lerner – notable civil rights activists, communists and historians – this adaptation starred James Whitmore as Griffin.
"Black Like Me" works as an interesting time capsule. We're taken down real 1960s streets and into real Southern towns, homes, shops and dance-halls. It's a bit like looking at a Gordon Parks photo-album (a notable black photographer famous for his portraits of Southern life), albeit without the compositional power.
Elsewhere the film offers several interesting, politically charged vignettes, like scenes in which black characters articulate their self-hatred, their shame, or explain the cunning tactics necessary for survival. One car ride finds Griffin encountering a man who has sex with black women to "purify inferior bloodlines", whilst another sees him encountering a white academic with a fondness for scientific racism. Other scenes point to the various forms of prejudice, bigotry and socioeconomic marginalisation habitually experienced by blacks.
Years after his book was published, Griffin was dragged from his car and beaten by white attackers who accused him of being a "race traitor". His book, powerful and well written, would anticipate the "non-fiction novel" genre, a genre Truman Capote is usually (wrongfully) credited with founding. Unfotunately little in "Black Like Me" (1964) approaches the quality of Griffin's novel. The film's didactic, polemical aspects are not a problem - indeed, the film is at its best when being polemical - but these qualities are constantly undermined by an intrusive flashback structure, a lethargic script, and a plot which wastes too much time on Griffin's "white" home life.
6/10 - Worth one viewing.