Film

Looking for Langston

1989 · 45 min · ★ 5 · Dir. Isaac Julien

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.

Starring

Ben Ellison
Alex
Matthew Baidoo
Beauty
Akim Mogaji
James
John Wilson
Karl
Dencil Williams
Marcus
Guy Burgess
Dean
Dublin James
Carlos
Harry Donaldson
Leatherboy
Jimmy Sommerville
Angel
Stuart Hall
British voice (voice)
Stuart Hall
British voice (voice)
Langston Hughes
Himself (archive footage)