Art is inherently political. Even trying to make a film that has nothing to do with politics is, in and of itself, a political act.
Interpretation
Art reflects societal values and political dynamics, regardless of its intended message.
Barry Jenkins suggests that all art, including films, is influenced by the political landscape of its time. Even when an artist aims to create something apolitical, the very choice to create in a specific context engages with the political sphere, making it a political act in itself. This implies that all forms of artistic expression resonate with broader societal issues and power structures.
In practice
In a speech at an arts conference discussing social change.
'Moonlight' is a story that hasn't been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.
It's interesting because I think class is a heavy, heavy part of 'Moonlight,' and I think, in a certain way, through the sum of all these parts, it's become a commentary on the black experience in America.
I have friends who I consider my peers, who have done amazing work, particularly in the film and television space, who came up as independent artists and who have been - to be brutally honest - much more prolific than I was able to be.
As a writer, a blank page will humble the hell out of you. It always does, and it always will.
Cinema is a little over 100 years old, and a lot of what we do is built around film emulsion. Those things were calibrated for white skin. We've always placed powder on skin to dull the light. But my memory of growing up in Miami is this moist, beautiful black skin.
'Moonlight' changed me. To see people so moved by this movie inspires me to find something else to offer. And maybe the next one touches only five people or maybe just one person. To me, you know, that would still be worth it.
Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me "weak" or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study which I decided deliberately four or five years ago to make, next to my poetry, the most important pursuit of my life...If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.
As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.
I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.
I could fill an entire second life with working on my prints.
I find it relatively easy to keep my clothes on because I don't really feel like taking them off. It's not an urge I have. For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is. That's putting myself out there, maybe even more than taking my shirt off.
I'd love to tell actors about all the things they don't need to worry about. Less is more. If you have it inside, you don't need to show too much. People pick up on things.
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