SUBJECTS

African American gay men -- 20th century -- Biography -- Drama, African American gays -- Drama, African American poets -- 20th century -- Biography -- Drama, American literature -- African American authors -- Drama, Gay men -- Drama, Harlem Renaissance -- Drama, Homophobia -- Drama, Homosexuality -- Drama, Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967 -- Drama, Poets, American -- 20th century -- Drama, Racism -- Drama

Looking for Langston

(Looking for Langston)

Isaac Julien
UK, 1988
  • In Conversation
    Isaac Julien
  • Stephen Best

    Associate Professor of English at UC Berkeley

featuring

Ben Ellison, John Wilson, Akim Mogaji, Matthew Baidoo,

PRECEDED BY: THE ATTENDANT (Isaac Julien, UK, 1993). The fantasy life of a black male attendant in a British museum. (10 mins, Color, Digital video, From Isaac Julien Studio)

THE LONG ROAD TO MAZATLÁN (Isaac Julien, UK, 1999). An exploration of sexual politics and the West. (18 mins, Color/B&W, Digital video, From Isaac Julien Studio)

Looking for Langston is a lyrical reimagining of the cultural legacy of revered African American poet Langston Hughes. Julien invokes Hughes as a black gay cultural icon, laying archival footage alongside performance in an impressionistic, atmospheric setting that is at once 1920s Harlem speakeasy, 1980s London gay nightclub, and atemporal dreamscape. Extracts from Hughes’s poetry are interwoven with the work of a range of cultural figures from the 1920s and beyond, including writers Bruce Nugent and Essex Hemphill and controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

The Black Room
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Isaac Julien
Cinematographer
  • Kina Kellgren
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital video
  • 45 mins
Source
  • Isaac Julien Studio
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Looking for Langston documents  

Looking for Langston (program note), San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, 1994

Overstepping the bounds of propriety: film offends Langston Hughes estate (article), Independent Film & Video Monthly, Catherine Saalfield, 1990

Looking for Langston (distributor materials), Sankofa Film & Video, 1990

Looking for Langston (program note), Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, 1989

Looking for Langston (program note), New York Film Festival, 1989

Looking for Langston (program note), San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, Mark Finch, 1989

Looking for Langston (program note), Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián (Spain), 1989

Looking for Langston (program note), Telluride Film Festival, 1989

Displaying 8 of 8 publicly available documents.


View all Looking for Langston documentation on CineFiles.