Films › Documentary
I Am Not Your Negro
Directed by Raoul Peck, 2017
Raoul Peck constructed this film entirely from James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House, using Baldwin's own words, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson in a deliberately flat, unornamented delivery, as the sole narration rather than commissioning new interviews or expert commentary. Editor Alexandra Strauss cuts Baldwin's text against archival news footage, film clips, and contemporary Black Lives Matter era imagery without dating cards separating past from present, a structural choice that argues historical continuity rather than illustrating it through explanation. Peck's decision to withhold present-day talking heads entirely is significant: it forces the film to make its argument through montage and juxtaposition, pairing a Baldwin sentence about American innocence with a still image or news clip that either confirms or ironizes it. Cinematography here is almost entirely archival curation rather than original shooting, so the film's craft lies in research and rights clearance as much as in image-making, a reminder that essay documentaries can be built from existing material if the editorial logic is precise enough to sustain ninety minutes.
What to watch for
Watch how footage from the 1960s is cut directly against contemporary news imagery with no date card separating them.
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