Coming Soon
I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
1982
Director
Dick Fontaine
Pat Hartley
Starring
James Baldwin
Sterling Brown
David Baldwin
Chinua Achebe
Amiri Baraka
Runtime
92 minutes
Select Showtime to Purchase Tickets
Select Showtimes
James Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement with his trademark brilliance and insight on the passage of more than two decades in the 1982 documentary I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE. From Selma to Birmingham, Atlanta to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, accompanied by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, and back north for a visit to Newark with Amiri Baraka, Baldwin lays bare the fiction of progress in post-Civil Rights America — wondering "what happened to those who did not die, but whose lives were smashed on Freedom Road."
"As much an essay as a documentary, with Baldwin a seemingly eager participant and co-author of the work. Baldwin and his old comrades have no time for nostalgia. They're clear-eyed and angry about the murders of dear friends and about how little progress was made despite the sacrifices. I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE gives lie to the comforting notion that suffering and sacrifice lead inevitably to justice and progress. It's a harsh truth, precisely and artfully rendered." - Darren Hughes, Filmmaker Magazine
"It brings out profound ideas by way of a thoughtful form and a distinctive method. It's a sort of investigative film, of travels and encounters, in which Baldwin is a guide, an observer, an interlocutor, and a commentator. He seeks to make the voices of the past—and the lives of Black people, celebrated or not—sing out, in their places, today." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker
NEW 4K RESTORATION COMMEMORATING THE JAMES BALDWIN CENTENNIAL IN 2024. Restored by Harvard Film Archive. Special thanks to Gugulethu Mseleku, Smokey Fontaine, the late Dick Fontaine, and Pat Hartley. Released by The Film Desk.
"As much an essay as a documentary, with Baldwin a seemingly eager participant and co-author of the work. Baldwin and his old comrades have no time for nostalgia. They're clear-eyed and angry about the murders of dear friends and about how little progress was made despite the sacrifices. I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE gives lie to the comforting notion that suffering and sacrifice lead inevitably to justice and progress. It's a harsh truth, precisely and artfully rendered." - Darren Hughes, Filmmaker Magazine
"It brings out profound ideas by way of a thoughtful form and a distinctive method. It's a sort of investigative film, of travels and encounters, in which Baldwin is a guide, an observer, an interlocutor, and a commentator. He seeks to make the voices of the past—and the lives of Black people, celebrated or not—sing out, in their places, today." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker
NEW 4K RESTORATION COMMEMORATING THE JAMES BALDWIN CENTENNIAL IN 2024. Restored by Harvard Film Archive. Special thanks to Gugulethu Mseleku, Smokey Fontaine, the late Dick Fontaine, and Pat Hartley. Released by The Film Desk.