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Looking for Langston
- Director: Isaac Julien
- Producer: Nadine Marsh-Edwards
CGiii Comment
The problem with this rubbish is that it's not even about Langston Hughes.
It's all imagery with some fine music - stills and stock footage - a moving collage.
Yes, it does look rather good in places...but, it really is just a 40 minute piece of self-indulgent crap that defies criticism due to political correctness.
Well, since CGiii is not a supporter of political correctness. When it's crap, we say it's crap.
And, this is crap.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
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.
Cast & Characters
Ben Ellison as Alex;
Matthew Baidoo as Beauty;
Akim Mogaji as James;
John Wilson as Karl;
Dencil Williams as Marcus;
Guy Burgess as Dean;
James Dublin as Carlos;
Harry Donaldson as Leatherboy;
Jimmy Somerville as Angel;
Stuart Hall as British voice;
Langston Hughes as Himself