In all modesty, I profess I do not know of any other example of a film created strictly from the preexisting texts of one author. Especially when the texts came from sources as diverse as personal notes not intended for publication, letters, manuscripts, speeches, and published books. To begin with, I was theorizing, without any clearly defined guideline, about an inconceivable film.
So how to start concretely, practically?
After some blind wandering, I realized that without creating a first draft of a complete document, I would not be able to advance the realization of the film. But how to create such a text? It could not be an adaptation, or a simple compilation, let alone a chronological narration. I needed a dramatic structure, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, as I would for any screenplay. Except that in this particular case the words already existed, as if in a large jar filled with unlabeled pieces of a precious mosaic. Each piece, a promising diamond. A diamond that must be set to reveal its unique value, positioned for proper resonance, to create layered meanings and stories that interweave, contradict, and even collide with one another. I wanted to make, as Baldwin wrote in his notes, “a funky dish of chitterlings.”
Like a librettist crafting the script for an opera from the scattered works of a revered author, I began my own journey, respecting at all times and preserving scrupulously the spirit, the philosophy, the pugnacity, the insight, the humor, the poetry, and the soul of the long-gone author.
It was clear from the start that countless traps lay ahead.
First, the material itself: several pages of notes typed, in no particular format, containing erasures, the object of repeated corrections. Even if it was evident from the outset that “Notes Toward Remember This House” was to be the foundation of this libretto, it was going to be hard work to find and include the additional texts that I needed to complete the manuscript and to do this without betraying or second-guessing Baldwin’s thoughts or intentions.
The first draft was more than fifty pages long (three hours of film), a solid script that could become a coherent story. That was certainly reassuring, but it was just the beginning. From version to version, I allowed myself more freedom, reversing paragraphs, phrases, or, more rarely, words. Then I discovered advantageously that Baldwin often rewrote several times, in different documents, letters, or notes, the same sentence, idea, or narrative, with slight modifications or different argumentations. This meant that in some instances I was able to use the version that best suited the purpose, alter complicated digressions, or even mix the beginning of one version with the end of another. I hope that Mr. Baldwin will forgive this posthumous invasion of a writer’s “kitchen.”
Working on this manuscript provided me with a precious glimpse of a master at work, a chance to observe and understand how Baldwin crafted his writing, nurtured his thoughts. In places I discovered different articulations, in similar but staggered versions, of an idea or a reflection that would later in a separate composition take on a more definitive form. An observation made in a private letter to his brother David Baldwin could be sprinkled later in some notes and then end up as a scathing sentence in a published essay. Like many writers, Baldwin recycled notes and ideas several times before finding their final shape and destination. It was the juxtaposition of different versions that sometimes allowed me to find the necessary transitions or formulations for the elaboration of this manuscript.
Of course, there have been some infringements on the principle of remaining faithful to Baldwin’s words. For example, where Baldwin wrote about “Bill,” I chose to add the last name “Miller” for clarity. I silently corrected him when Baldwin erroneously referred to the actor Clinton Rosemond as “Clinton Rosewood” or mistyped Mantan Moreland’s name as “Manton Moreand.” Or again, when he wrote “Malcolm’s oldest daughter, whose name is Stillah (I’m not sure of the spelling),” I corrected that to “Malcolm’s oldest daughter, whose name is Attallah.” In spite of these few exceptions, we remained to the end devoted to James Baldwin’s thought, style, and choices.
What else is there to say? I hope not to have betrayed a man who has accompanied me from very early on, every day of my life, as a brother, father, mentor, accomplice, consoler, comrade-in-arms—an eternal witness of my own wanderings.
Thank you, my friend (if I may). You are forever inscribed in our memories and in our lives.