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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2019)
Page 10 February 6, 2019 Avalon Flowers 520 SW 3rd Ave., Portland, OR 97204 • 503-796-9250 A full service flower experience Cori Stewart-- Owner, Operator • Birthdays • Anniversaries • Funerals • Weddings Arts & ENTERTAINMENT photo Courtesy Open: Mon.-Fri. 7:30am til 5:30pm Saturday 9am til 2pm. a nnapurna p iCtures Stephan James and Kiki Lane star as a young couple relying on their love to sustain them through unspeakable hardships in “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Website: avalonflowerspdx.com email: avalonflowers@msn.com We Offer Wire Services If Beale Street Could Talk 5010 NE 9th Ave Portland, Or 97211 Phone: 503 284-2989 Stylist Wanted We specialize in a variety of cuts for men and women, hot towel razor shaves, braiding, hair extension, Shampoo, blow dryer and Platinum fade. Call Today or Walk in !!! Love survives hardships in top film from 2018 D arleen o rtega Based on the novel by James Baldwin, the prophet of modern African American thought and literature, “If Beale Street Could Talk” (number 2 on my list of the best films of 2018) opens with this quote from Baldwin: “Beale Street is a street in New Orleans, where my father, where Louis Armstrong and the jazz were born. Every black per- son born in America was born on Beale Street, born in the back neighborhood of some American city, whether in Jackson, Missis- sippi, or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy. This novel deals with the impossibility and the possibility, the absolute necessity, to give expression to this legacy.” The great writer-director Barry Jenkins (whom Hollywood ap- pallingly recognized with only an Oscar nomination for screenwrit- by ing, but not for best director and not for the picture itself) adapted Baldwin’s novel before receiving permission from Baldwin’s es- tate to film it. And though there is no record of a Beale Street in New Orleans, what Baldwin cre- ated and Jenkins has brought to the screen pulses with the urgen- cy of imparting what is true about the lived experience of American blacks. Beale Street is the back street--”Backatown,” as they would say in New Orleans--where blacks are born and are generally forced to live, save for those few who become useful to white su- premacy in some way. Baldwin sought to express what would be heard about black experience if anyone would listen, and Jenkins’ film evokes that intention with sound, images and care that will break your heart if you let it. And a broken heart is the only appropriate response to this story Providing Insurance and Financial Services Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710 Ernest J. Hill, Jr. Agent 311 NE Killingsworth St, Portland, OR 97211 503 286 1103 Fax 503 286 1146 ernie.hill.h5mb@statefarm.com 24 Hour Good Neighbor Service R State Farm R of two young people, Fonny and Tish, who have only love to sus- tain them through unspeakable hardships that are thrust upon them, as they are upon black peo- ple in America to this day. Their love is what grounds the story because it is so clearly what en- ables the young lovers to with- stand, without entirely breaking, the blows that would and do break many others--the daily indignities, the violations of their bodies, the constant messages that, as Tish ex- plains, black people receive from childhood--”that they weren’t worth shit--and everything around them proved it.” The love story of Fonny and Tish (a luminous Stephan James and Kiki Layne) works in anoth- er important way: it helps us to grieve as we should for their sto- len potential. From the very begin- ning, the film cuts back and forth between achingly beautiful scenes of a love built on friendship forged as children, and Tish’s visits to the jail where Fonny is awaiting trial for a brutal rape that he did not commit. It lingers over their early and sweet longing, the tenderness of recognition that they belong to each other, the grasping for hope and for dreams of a future beyond what the culture has imagined for them. The ways they reach for one another are imbued with an appro- priate sense of reverence; some- how these two have discovered and reflect back to each other what so many black young people have been deprived of seeing: their in- herent beauty and worth. There is nobody better than C ontinueD on p age 14
