Looking for Langston

5.0
  • Genre: Drama
  • Run time: 45 min
  • Premiere: 1989. October 31.

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.

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Art

Derek Brown

Art Direction

Camera

Nina Kellgren

Director of Photography

Directing

Isaac Julien

Director

Editing

Production

Sound

Ronald Bailey

Sound mixer

Peter Spencer

Original Music Composer

Wayson Jones

Original Music Composer

Trevor Mathison

Original Music Composer

Writing

Isaac Julien

Screenplay

Art

Derek Brown

Art Direction

Camera

Nina Kellgren

Director of Photography

Directing

Isaac Julien

Director

Editing

Production

Sound

Ronald Bailey

Sound mixer

Peter Spencer

Original Music Composer

Wayson Jones

Original Music Composer

Trevor Mathison

Original Music Composer

Writing

Isaac Julien

Screenplay