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Looking for Langston (1989)

Looking for Langston (1989)

Drama
Release Date: 1989, October 31
Directors: Isaac Julien
Countries: United Kingdom
Production: BFI, BFI, Sankofa Film & Video, Sankofa Film & Video
Cast: John Wilson, Stuart Hall, Harry Donaldson, Guy Burgess, Dublin James Wahlberg, Jimmy Somerville, Akim Mogaji, Ben Ellison, Matthew Baidoo, Dencil Williams

Overview:

A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.

Keywords:

lgbt gay theme harlem renaissance