All language subtitles for Isaac Julien - Looking for Langston(1988)-en

(Air-raid siren)

(Traffic rumbles)

(Toni Morrison) '..who may be, indeed,

'the only people in the world
who really re anything about them.

When that unassailable combination

'of mind and heart,

'of intellect and passion, was on display,

'it guided us through treacherous landscape

'as it did when you wrote these words,

'words every rebel, every dissident,
every revolutionary,

'every practising artist
from Cape Town to Poland,

'from Waycross to Dublin, could memorise.

'A person does not lightly elect
to oppose his society.

'One would much rather be at home
among one's compatriots

'than be mocked and detected by them.

'And there's a level on which the mockery
of the people, even their hatred,

'is moving, because it is so blind.'

Why should it be my loneliness?

Why should it be my song?

Why should it be my dream
deferred overlong?'

(Radio announcer) 'Monday night,
May 22nd, Mr Hughes died.

'In his honour,
Riverside Radio WRVR in New York

'presents "ln Memoriam, Langston Hughes",

'a blending of memories,
tributes and his own words.'

(I Jazz/Blues)

(Langston Hughes) The sun's a-settin',
this is what I'm gonna sing.

The sun's a-settin',
this is what I'm gonna sing.

I feel the blues a-comin',
wonder what the blues'll bring.

'I got those sad old weary blues.

'I don't know where to turn.
I don't know where to go.

'Nobody res about you
when you sink so low.'

(J' Blackberri: Blues For Langston)

♪ Langston,
I'm singin' these blues for you

♪ Langston,
I'm singin' these blues for you

♪ You love this music

♪ and God knows,
we love this music too

♪ My man's got a heart

♪ Like a rock in the sea

♪ Whatever happened
to the dream deferred

♪ Whatever happened
to the dream deferred

♪ Things haven't changed much

♪ We still find power in our words

♪ I wandered as you wandered

♪ And I've seen how far you've come

♪ Though history's forgotten names

♪ Your name will not be one

♪ ls there a life that you've hidden?

♪ One you felt was forbidden

♪ We're seeking what's true

♪ Cos we want to know you ♪

(Stuart Hall) 'Langston Hughes,
friend of Countee Cullen,

'friend of Bruce Nugent, friend of Alain Locke,
friend of Wallace Thurman,

'admired for their intelligence and their art.

Were they seeking the approval of the race

'or of the black middle class
and the white literary establishment'?

'Langston Hughes wrote that the ordinary
Negro hadn't heard of the Renaissance.

'And if they had,
it hadn't raised their wages any.

'Baraka said Harlem was "vicious modernism,

"hang-clash vicious, the way it was made.

“They could not understand such beauty,
so violent and transforming".

'But could he understand the beauty
of the people with "freakish ways"?

'Homosexuality was a sin against the race

'so it had to be kept a secret,
even if it was a widely shared one.'

(Police siren)

(J' George Hannah: Freakish Man Blues)

♪ Gall me a freakish man

♪ What more was there to do

♪ She called me a freakish man

♪ What more was there to do

♪ Just cos she said I was strange

♪ That did not make it true

♪ I sent her to the mill
to have her coffee ground

♪ I sent her to the mill,
for her to have her coffee ground

♪ Cos my wheel was broke
and my grinder could not be found

♪ You mix ink with water ♪

(Man laughs)
♪ It's bound to turn it black

♪ I say, you mix ink with water

♪ Bound to turn it black

♪ You run around with funny people,
you'll get a streak of it up your back

♪ There was a time when I was alone

♪ My freakish ways to treat

♪ There was a time when I was alone

♪ My freakish ways to treat

♪ But they're so common now,
you get one every day in the week

♪ Had a strange feeling this morning

♪ Well, I've had it all day

♪ Had a strange feeling this morning

♪ Well, I've had it all day

♪ I'll wake up one of these mornings,
that feeling will be here to stay ♪

(waves lap)

(Birds chirp)

(Bruce Nugent) 'He was in a field,
a field of blue smoke and black poppies

'and red Ila lilies.

'He was searching on his hands and knees,

'searching among black poppies
and red Ila lilies.

'He was searching pushed-aside poppy stems

'then he saw two strong legs, dancers legs.

'The contours pleased him.

'His eyes wandered on
past the muscular hocks to the firm thighs.

'The rounded buttocks,
then the lithe, narrow waist.

'Strong torso and broad, deep chest.

'The brown eyes looking at him.

'His hair curly and black and all tousled.

'And it was Beauty.

'And Beauty smiled
and looked at him and smiled

'and said, "I'll wait."

'And he became confused, and continued
his search on his hands and knees,

'pushing aside poppy stems and lily stems.

'A POPPY. a mack POPPY.

'A lily, a red lily.

'And he awoke.

'Beauty was smiling' in his sleep,

'half his face stained flush colour by the sun,

'the other half in shadow,

'his eyelash sting cobwebby blue shadows
on his cheek.

'His lips were so beautiful,

'quizzical.

"'L will kiss your lips."
He would like to kiss Beauty's lips.

'He flushed warm with shame,

'or was it shame?

'His pulse was hammering
from wrist to fingertip.

'Beauty's lips touched his.

'His temples throbbed.
Beauty's breath me short now,

'softly staccato.

'Beauty's lips pressed cool, cool and hard.

'How much pressure
d it take to awaken one?

'He could feel his breath
on his nostrils and lips.

'Beauty's lips pressed hard against his teeth.

'He trembled.
He could feel Beauty's body close against his,

'hot, tense, and soft,

'soft!

(Stuart Hall) 'He said, "Put no difference into
your tone when you speak of his name."

"Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

"'Let my name be spoken without effect,
without the ghost of shadow on it."'

♪ Whatever happened
to the dream deferred?

♪ Whatever happened
to the dream deferred?

♪ Things haven't changed much

♪ We still find power in our words

♪ I wandered as you wandered

♪ And I've seen how far you've come

♪ Though history's forgotten names

♪ Your name will not be one

♪ ls there a life that you've hidden?

♪ One you felt was forbidden?

♪ We're seeking what's true

♪ Cos we want to know you ♪

(Air-raid siren)

(Waves crash)

(Essex Hemphill) 'Stalking.

'The neighbourhood is dangerous
but we go there.

We walk the long way.

'Our jangling keys
mute the sound of our stalking.

'To be under the sky, above or below a man,

'this is our heat,

'radiant in the night.

'Our hands blister with semen.

'A field of flowers blossoms
where we gather in empty warehouses.

'Our seed falls
without the sound or the grace of stars.

We lurk in shadows.

We are the hunger... of shadows.

'In the dark, we don't have to say "I love you".

'The dark swallows it and sighs like we sigh

'when we rise from our knees.

'I am lonely for past kisses.

Wild lips certain streets breed for pleasure.

'Romance is a foxhole.

'This kind of war frightens me.

'I don't want to die
sleeping with soldiers I don't love.

'I want to court outside the race,

'outside the class, outside the attitudes,

'but love is a dangerous word
in this small town.

'Those who seek it are sometimes found
face down, floating on their beds.

'Those who find it protect it
or destroy it from within.

'But the disillusioned,

'those who've lost the stardust,
the moondance, the waterfront,

'like them, I long for my past.

When I was 10, 13, 20,

'I wanted candy,

'five dollars a ride.'

(J' Blackberri: Beautiful Black Man)

♪ Oh, 0h, 0h, 0h, Ohhhhhh

Come on, look at me.

♪ Beautiful black man, I'm just like you

♪ Cos you know I face discrimination too

♪ Got here about ten

♪ When I walked in this place

♪ Hardly nobody here
would look me in the face

♪ You're such a beautiful black man

♪ But somehow you've been made to feel

♪ That your beauty's not real

♪ You're such a beautiful black man

♪ Don't you walk with your head bending low

♪ Don't you do that no more

♪ Beautiful black man, did they ask for ID?

♪ Did they want two pictures
or did they want three?

♪ I know it's hard, but sometimes we must

♪ Just walk away, shake our heads in disgust

♪ You're such a beautiful black man

♪ But somehow you've been made to feel

♪ That your beauty's not real

♪ You're such a beautiful black man

♪ Walk with a smile on your face

♪ Be proud of your race

♪ I'm saying you're beautiful

♪ Saying you're beautiful

♪ Don't you know you're beautiful, beautiful?

♪ You got a beautiful face

♪ I'm saying you're beautiful

♪ Come on, now

♪ And be proud of your race

♪ I'm sayin' now

♪ Come on,
be proud of it, proud of it... ♪

(Stuart Hall) 'It was a time
when the Negro was in vogue.

White patrons of the Harlem Renaissance
wanted their black artists and writers

'to know and feel the intuitions of the primitive.

'They didn't want modernism.
They wanted black art

'to keep art and artists in their place.

'By the end of the '20s,
Negroes were no longer in vogue.

'Patrons found other uses for their money.

'Sophisticated New Yorkers
turned to Noel Coward

'and coloured artists and writers
began to go hungry.

'History, the smiler
with the knife under the cloak'

(Police siren)

(J' Walking bass and fingersnaps)

(Essex Hemphill) 'He speaks good damn
English to me.

'I'm his brother, Carver.

'He doesnt speak that "dis" and "dat" bull
I've seen quoted.

'Every word he speaks rings clear in my head.

'I don't suppose you ever hear him clearly.

'You're always busy,
seeking other things of him.

'His name isn't important.

'It would be coincidence
if he had a name, a face, a mind.

'If he's not hard born, then he's hard-up

'and either way you watch him.

'You want crossover music.

'You want his pleasure without guilt or capture.

'You don't notice many things about him.

'He doesn't always wear a red ski p,

'eat flied chicken, fuck like a jungle.

'He doesn't always live
with his mother or off the streets

'or off some bitch as you assume.

'You appear to be concerned.

'You offer him $20 telling him it's b fare

'and discharge him from your home.

'Your paths cross the next day.

'You don't acknowledge him but he remembers.

'His seed dilutes in your blood.

'He doesn't dance well but you don't notice.

'To you he's only visible in the dark.'

(Projector whirs)

(Essex Hemphill) 'Lowering my pants
before another mouth.

'The cheap movie reel
rattles in its compartment

'while the silent colour movie, for a quarter,

'grinds around and around.

We pant in a dark booth.

'The musk of hair burns our nostrils.

'I moan as his mouth swallows me.

'This is the first sound in this silent movie,

'then he moans,

'giving the movie its dialogue.

(Breathing)

'Now we think, as we fuck,

'this nut might kill us.

'There might be a pin-sized hole in the condom.

'A lethal leak

We stop kissing tall dark strangers,

'sucking moustaches,
putting lips, tongues, everywhere.

We return to pictures. Telephones. Toys.

'Recent lovers, private lives.

'Now we think, as we fuck,

'this nut might kill.

'This kiss could turn to stone.'

(Stuart Hall) 'Sometimes on the edge of sleep

'these faces and others are projected
against the wall of memory

'and almost immediately I'm back in the gallery

'where I first saw these faces
and heard their names.

'Being introduced to Alain Locke
at an impromptu all-boy tea party.

'Kissing Langston Hughes
and never forgetting it.

'Being photographed by Carl Van Vechten.

'Staging the first production of Baldwin's
The Amen Corner at Howard University.

'Straightening Hamid Jackman's tie.

'Not ling much for Countee Cullen's looks.

'Hunting dark meat with Auden up in Harlem.

'Being loved.

(Tram bell rings)

What probably seemed obvious to him then
would not make itself clear to me for years.

We were linked by our homosexual desires.

'Eventually I discovered that they had broken a
number of rules about the Negro

'by writing at all.

'But before I me to terms with that

'I would have to learn something about
the terms they had set for themselves

'and others had set for them.

(Seagulls ll)

'Not to discuss the moral significance
of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes,

'Alain Locke, choosing, in the main,
others of their kind to love,

'is to emasculate
and embalm their society as a whole.

'It erases the image of the two coloured sissies

'kissing and producing poems and paintings
for and about each other.

'And finally, it undermines, as so much
of America's recorded history does,

'whenever it attempts to reconcile itself
to that enigma known as the Negro,

'the dismissal of nearly everything
that does not make it white.

'History as the smiler with the knife.'

(J' Slow jazz/blues)

(Langston Hughes) 'I loved my friend.

'He went away from me.

'There's nothing more to say.

'The poem ends, soft as it began.

'I loved my friend.'

(waves lap)

(Langston Hughes) 'Oh, sweep of stars
over Harlem streets.

'Oh, little breath of oblivion
that is night.

'A city building to a mothers song.

'A city dreaming to a lullaby.

'Reach up your hand, dark boy,

'and take a star out of the little
breath of oblivion that is night.

'Take just one star.'

(Hemphill) 'You left me begging for things most
men thought they had below their belts.

'I was reaching higher.

'L could throw my legs up like satellites

'but I knew I was fucking fallen angels.

'I made them feel like demigods.

'I believed my mission to be a war-zone duty:

'don't create casualties, heal them.

'But I was the wounded, almost dead,

'helping the uninjured. Men whose lusty hearts
weakened in the middle of the night

'and brought them to tears, to their knees,

'for their former lovers.

'They could look at me and tell
they did not want to endure

'what beauty love rs give me.

'So touch me now,

'Hannibal, Toussaint.

'I am a revolution without bloodshed.

'I n change the order of things
to suit my desperations.

'You n raise your legs, almost touch heaven.

'I n be an angel, falling.'

(I Royal House: Can You Party)

- Check this out.
- ♪ Can you feel it?

(Men shout)

♪ Can you feel it?

♪ Oh, yea!“

♪ Can you feel it?
♪ Wooh, baby

♪ 'Noah, wooh, wooh, baby

♪ Can you feel it?

♪ Oh, yea!“

♪ Oh, yea!“

♪ Can you feel it? ♪

(Wind blows)

(Birds sing)

(Men shout)

(Birds chirp)

- 'I saw you last night'
- 'Many occupants are never found.'

- 'in the basement'
- 'Many noes overturn.'

- 'of the Brass Rail.'
- 'Your dark diva's face,

- 'a lake.'
- 'Blushing and laughing.'

'I hear the sea'

- 'Your voice falling from the air.'
- 'screaming behind your eyes.'

'Dancing with the boys on the edge of funk'

'Twilight!

'The boys danced, darling,'

- 'My tongue'
- 'touching you'

- Valle'
- 'indiscreetly!

'Along your thighs like a hermit.'

'Your body a green light.'

- 'I have been naked with you.'
- 'Urging them.'

'Dear Diva. Darling.'

- 'You were in the mirrors.'
- 'The light.'

'Their arms.'

- 'The boys whispered about you.'
- 'Singapore Slings toasted you.'

'Under the music pumping from the jukebox'

'They were promises chilled by ice cubes.

- 'The boys whispered about you'
- 'The sloe gin fizzes'

- 'under the music pumping from the jukebox'
- 'and the Singapore Slings toasted you.'

- 'You were in the mirrors.'
- 'The light.'

- 'Their arms.'
- 'Your body a green light.'

- 'Dear Diva, Darling,'
- 'The boys danced, darling,'

- 'I have been naked with you.'
- 'touching you indiscreetly.'

'My tongue has walked along your thighs.'

- 'Dancing on the edge of funk. Your voice'
- 'I have the found the scent. Twilight.'

- 'falling from the air. Blushing and laughing.'
- 'I hear the sea screaming behind your eyes.'

- 'Your dark diva's face,'
- 'I saw you last night'

- 'a lake. Many noes overturn.'
- 'in the basement of the Brass Rail.'

'Many occupants are never found.'

(Crash)

♪ Too black

♪ Too strong

♪ Check this out ♪

(Langston Hugh) 'Looks like
she could've noticed if she only would.

'He mistreated her terrible.

'Beat her up bad.

'Then went off and left her, stole all she had.

'She tried to find out what road Dave took,

'but there wasn't a trace, HOWE)! she looked.'

That woman
who could foresee what your future meant

oouldn't tell to save her where David went.

Sun's a-arising'.

This is gonna be my song.

The sun's a-arising'.

This is gonna be my song.

I could be blue,
but I've been blue all night long.

English SDH