Barry Jenkins
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“The More Unapologetic We Became, The More Interest We Got”: Raven Jackson on All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Immersive and poetically expressive, Raven Jackson’s confident debut feature All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt chronicles the life of Mack, a Black Mississippi woman portrayed at different ages by four different performers, with a lived-in attentiveness and affection. Throughout Jackson’s non-linear ecosystem of portraits, quiet sequences, dewy visuals and sensual soundscapes, the filmmaker breaks the conventions of storytelling so naturally that you instantly recognize the confidence of someone well-versed enough in her art and craft to make her own set of rules. The seeds of Jackson’s approach and exactness of imagination were already planted in her short film, Nettles (2018), […]
by Tomris Laffly on Nov 1, 2023 -
“How Big Can We Get? What Crane is Available for This Day?” DP James Laxton on The Underground Railroad
Developed and directed by Barry Jenkins, and adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad takes viewers into the world of slavery in the Deep South prior to the Civil War. Like Whitehead’s novel, the series integrates fantasy and mythological elements with real-life events. The Underground Railroad focuses on Cora Randall (played by Thuso Mbedu), who escapes from a cotton plantation in Georgia and travels through the Carolinas, Tennessee and Indiana to avoid recapture. Other characters include escaped slave Caesar (Aaron Pierre), slave hunter Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) and Homer (Chase Dillon), Ridgeway’s young African-American companion. Cinematographer James Laxton has […]
by Daniel Eagan on May 17, 2021 -
Streaming, Theatrical and Film School: Barry Jenkins, Boots Riley and Aaron Stewart-Ahn at the Miami International Film Festival
Three of current American independent cinema’s most prominent filmmakers recently came together at the Miami International Film Festival to impart some of the hard-earned knowledge they’ve acquired. Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), musician, activist, and storyteller Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and journalist-turned-screenwriter Aaron Stewart-Ahn (Mandy) were honored at the festival as the first trio of guests to be part of the inaugural Knight Heroes masterclass and symposium. Ahead of their presentations in front of a crowded Olympia Theater in Downtown Miami, the three creators sat down with Filmmaker to discuss a wide range of topics: the […]
by Carlos Aguilar on May 14, 2019 -
“Love and Injustice”: Composer Nicholas Britell on the Score for Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk
New York City in the 1970s occupies a special place in the popular imagination; there was a look and feel and, more important, a sound that captured the range of the city from grit to glitz. Barry Jenkins’s new If Beale Street Could Talk is set during this era of New York City, and the look is unmistakable: The backdrop is full of Impala yellow taxis, small shops and cool lofts. Yet the city fades into the background, giving way to the compelling and un-self-consciously presented love story of Tish and Fonny, childhood best friends in Harlem who become lovers […]
by Martin Johnson on Dec 20, 2018 -
How Can the Camera Show Love? Cinematographer James Laxton on Shooting If Beale Street Could Talk
Cinematographer James Laxton’s latest project, If Beale Street Could Talk, marks a further step in his collaboration with director Barry Jenkins. Based on the novel by James Baldwin, it follows a troubled romance between Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) in the New York City of the early 1970s. If Beale Street Could Talk screened at the closing night celebration at the recent Camerimage Festival, where Laxton had a packed schedule. He participated in a two-part panel,”The Language of Cinema Is Image,” conducted a four-hour Arri Master Class on large-format digital capture, presented a Creative Light Experts roundtable, and […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 14, 2018 -
“What Moonlight Gave Us Was the Confidence to Execute Our Ideas Without Fear”: Writer/Director Barry Jenkins on If Beale Street Could Talk
Writer-director Barry Jenkins solidifies his position as one of the current cinema’s most empathetic and visually (and aurally) expressive filmmakers with his third feature, If Beale Street Could Talk. Adapted from a 1974 novel by James Baldwin, the film tells the story of Tish and Fonny, a young couple whose dreams are cut short by Fonny’s wrongful imprisonment; moving back and forth between the early days of their love story and the brutal reality of their present, Jenkins crafts a masterpiece that is simultaneously achingly, hopefully romantic and unblinking in its portrait of social injustice. While Moonlight drew upon cinematic […]
by Jim Hemphill on Dec 13, 2018 -
Indie Memphis: Not Just an Inclusion Rider
In Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, two rock ‘n’ roll-loving Japanese teenagers arrive in Memphis, Tennessee, and make their way over to Sun Studio, the legendary recording studio once the stomping grounds for the likes of Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, Elvis Presley, who recorded his first song there at the age of 18. In part because of the faint replay of this scene that had lingered in my head for some years, I’ve long wanted to take the Sun tour, one of my many Memphis to-dos, which also included a bunch of famous barbecue […]
by Kristen Yoonsoo Kim on Nov 14, 2018 -
Trailer Watch: Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk
What a beautiful trailer! Filmmaker‘s #1 most anticipated movie of the year — Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to his his Oscar-winning Moonlight — has just dropped its first, a few weeks before the picture’s Venice premiere. The intimacy, the focus on faces, the dance of eyelines, the lovely burnished period mise en scene — I love this trailer’s whole style and vibe. Check out above the first images from Jenkins’s adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2018 -
“Find Your Tribe”: Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins and Producer Adele Romanski Give Advice at IFP Week
Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski know what IFP Week is like. They know what it’s like to pitch a passion project. They even know what it’s like when time — in Jenkin’s case, several years — elapses between features. When the writer/director and producer, respectively, of Moonlight swung by this year’s Filmmaker Talks day at IFP Week, it was a kind of victory lap. After all, their last film together took home three Oscars, including Best Picture, on top of a towering pile of other accolades. But they used their talk with moderator Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker‘s Editor-in-Chief, to remember when life was […]
by Matt Prigge on Sep 18, 2017 -
Independent Film’s Sorry Quarter Century?
The American independent film movement began in a movie theater a little over 100 years ago when Oscar Micheaux watched, through clenched teeth, the racist Hollywood establishment blockbuster The Birth of a Nation. A few years later, the first American indie film was released to a targeted niche audience; Oscar Micheaux’s The Homesteader announced the beginning of a movement born of rage and profound personal vision. What followed were deeply personal, formally inventive narratives from such innovators as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Ida Lupino, Melvin Van Peebles and John Cassavetes. The films were made on low budgets with little to […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Sep 14, 2017
