-Welcome back to the show. -Thank you very much.
Um, congratulations on the film, first of all.
You know, just last night, you received an award.
I mean, uh, the film has been nominated for everything,
from Golden Globes to Academy Awards.
Uh, Regina won that amazing Golden Globe
for her performance.
Let's start at the beginning.
If Beale Street Could Talk--
based on a James Baldwin novel.
That is not an easy thing to achieve,
to turn not just a novel but a James Baldwin book into a film.
Where do you-- where did you even start?
Yeah, uh, you know, I started without the rights to the novel.
Uh, I'll say that up front. I just went to Europe
and decided I would adapt it, and, uh--
not thinking, "Oh, I have to get permission from someone.
This is a published text." I was like, "I'm just gonna do it."
And so I did it and came back and realized,
"Oh, and now you have to actually legally be able
to do this." But, uh, for me,
Mr. Baldwin had many voices he spoke in.
The two voices that were most prominent to me:
the one voice was obsessed with sensuality,
romance, interpersonal relationships;
and the other one, just as passionate
about systemic injustice.
And, in this book,
there's this relationship between this young couple,
Tish and Fonny, and I felt like that was just, like,
the best vehicle to blend the systemic injustice,
all these things he said about American society
and the things that bond us and bind us,
um, in living in this country.
They were just fused in the story of these two kids.
Right. And-and many people may know James Baldwin.
You know, obviously, he's been brought up in conversations
-around Ta-Nehisi Coates. -Mm-hmm.
Uh, people may know his essays.
But-but not many people are familiar with him as a novelist.
-Mm-hmm. -And this story was really interesting,
because, as you said, it's a story about Tish and Fonny.
-It is-- it's a love story. -Mm-hmm.
But it's a love story that is taking place
in a time in America
which is familiar to some today
but was really more intense before,
when you really could not be a black person
living free in the United States.
Yeah, you know, we talk about, like,
aggressions, microaggressions.
And I think-think in this period, the early 1970s,
is a period where, you know, black people would now arrive.
The civil rights, uh, movement had sort of come
and everything is great and Vietnam is happening.
And there was almost like this clap-back,
where it was like, "Okay, now you have these rights,
"but now we want to show you just how we can still enact,
-you know, all these aggressions." -Right.
And I think this young man in this book, Fonny, gets caught up
in the system that is so very easily manipulated.
And that system is, um... I-I won't spoil anything
in the movie for you, but what happens very early on
is we learn that Fonny has been accused
-of raping a woman, right? -Mm-hmm.
And the story takes place in Harlem and the Bronx.
And he's been accused of raping a woman,
and he has an alibi, but his alibis are worthless,
because they are black people, unfortunately.
And-and you're seeing how the story plays out,
but what's interesting to me in the story is,
-you have characters who are his family... -Mm-hmm.
...who feel for the woman who has accused him of rape.
Mm-hmm.
When you're writing that, and when you're creating that,
why is it so important to have that moment
where you have people whose lives are being destroyed
because of somebody else's accusation,
and they are still sympathetic to the woman's cause?
'Cause in the movie, there's a powerful scene
where one of them says, "Do you think she was even raped?"
And the woman... her friend turns...
Tish's sister turns to her and says,
-"Sister, don't ever say that." -Mm-hmm.
"I know what women go through.
-She's not lying." -Mm-hmm.
-"But I know Fonny didn't do it." -Mm-hmm.
Was that difficult to create? And why was that important?
Uh, you know, it wasn't difficult to create.
I think it's a function of James Baldwin,
to be brutally honest, and I think, um, you know,
the book is about trauma in a certain way.
And I think these things we're going through
in America right now are also about trauma.
You know, talking about it, acknowledging it,
and then creating the tools to deal with it.
And so I think, in this book,
you have all these human beings, because he's James Baldwin,
-who have access to their full humanity. -Right.
So acknowledging this woman's trauma does not mean
that we're also denying Fonny's innocence.
-That's interesting. -And really, when you break down
what's happening in this book,
Fonny's not falsely accused of anything.
These two people have never met.
He's been placed in a police lineup by a cop
-who you see has a vendetta against him. -Right.
And the system is so easily manipulated
that all it takes is for this cop to say,
"This person was here," and now you're trapped.
-Right. -Now you're caught up in the system.
And what I loved about making this film...
You know, I'm not a woman, James Baldwin was not a woman,
um, and so I had to check my directorial ego,
and trust Regina King, KiKi Layne, Aunjanue Ellis,
um, Teyonah Parris, Emily Rios, all these women.
And there was a point where I was like,
"Can we really deal with this stuff, you know?
"Can we really touch all this very, uh, sensitive tissue,
-all these grenades Mr. Baldwin has left us?" -Right.
And to a woman, they all said, "We have to acknowledge this.
"You know, if we don't acknowledge this woman's trauma,
"that is more of a trigger than trying to remove the trigger
-from the narrative." -Right.
And I think when you process it that way,
you can very clearly see, as long as we're treating everyone
as a human being, acknowledging everyone's trauma,
then we can really get at
how these systems disenfranchise all of us.
What was interesting about the movie, as well,
is that, I've-I've seen many movies
that tell the story about black peoples' pain or suffering.
Mm-hmm.
What I haven't seen a lot of is stories
where you are experiencing black people living life...
-Mm-hmm. -...as a combination
-of pain, suffering, joy. -Mm.
Uh, you know, love, passion.
All of these things are taking place simultaneously.
Mm-hmm.
You know, a lot of the time it feels like it comes
with the filmmaker, but do you think that...
it makes a difference in who is telling a story
as to how they see the story to be told?
I think it does. You know, this is a very simple story,
and I think we've seen a version of this story,
where a character like Fonny is dehumanized,
and in the wrong hands, that's the version
that ends up reaching the audience.
I think in the hands of James Baldwin
and these wonderful actors and, I guess,
ultimately myself, the humanization of these characters
comes part and parcel.
So you're right, there is joy, there is love, you know,
there is, um, birth, to be honest,
despite the despair that the characters are undergoing.
And to me, that was a part of, like, really sort of endeavoring
to bring James Baldwin to the screen.
He's a very, uh, interior writer.
-It's all about the interior life of the characters. -Yes.
But what I love about working with people like yourself--
you're a wonderful actor as well--
is you can take all that interior language, you know--
with Hemingway, you refer to it as the "iceberg,"
all these things beneath the surface-- and bring it out,
so that a person can walk into the auditorium
and understand that a young man like Fonny,
which, uh, Stephan James, who plays Fonny,
based a lot of his character on the ordeal of Kalief Browder,
and I'm sure your audience knows exactly who Kalief Browder is,
and you can see, in these two hours,
just this whole world of possibility
that is unfortunately being corrupted, corroded,
um, by the system.
One thing that's really powerful about the entire film--
and I honestly would tell everybody to watch it--
it's not just beautiful in the way you've shot it--
congratulations, the acting is phenomenal,
the storytelling is beautiful and different.
You know, we live in different times and in different periods.
It's not just linear.
But what I really found fascinating and different
was that there was no "bad guy."
-Right. -It really was a story
about a system that has been created
and we are all living in
and experiencing at different levels.
-Mm-hmm. -That seemed like a very conscious choice,
because it was... these families were experiencing the system,
and it wasn't like, "There's the bad man, let's get him,"
and then the story is saved.
You know, we've been telling stories,
uh, cinematically at least, for about a hundred years,
and somehow, some way, over the last 20, 30 years,
the format of those stories
have been reducing, have been shrinking.
You know, there are good guys and bad guys, and that's it.
I think when you have it that way,
it's really easy to stand outside the story and go,
"Okay, I'm with the good people and those are the bad people,
-so this problem is not mine." -Right.
I think when there's no bad person, you know,
when everyone is very gray
and we can see how we all play a role in the system,
then it comes from the screen and it goes into your life.
You can understand how, when I go to the ballot box,
I am now empowering the system.
And even though I think I'm not participating in it,
I definitely am.
And James Baldwin published this in 1974.
He knew all about systems.
That's why the story is still so relevant to today.
It's an amazing story.
You are truly one of my favorite directors.
Congratulations again. Good luck for the Oscars.
-(cheering, applause) -If Beale Street Could Talk
is now in select theaters nationwide
and opens everywhere January 18.
You really want to watch this movie.
Barry Jenkins, everybody.