"The Devil Finds Work" -James Baldwin (Post by Daniel Goldenshtein)

Author: James Baldwin
Title: "The Devil Finds Work"

The book length essay is both a memoir of his experiences watching movies and a critique of the racial politics of American cinema. It opens with a discussion of a Joan Crawford film, which is the first movie Baldwin can remember seeing, and ends with a discussion of The Exorcist, which came out in 1973. Among the other movies discussed are Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and The Defiant Ones. Although it is a popular culture critique of films mostly, Baldwin weaves in anecdotes about his life, which are illuminating and devastatingly poignant. Take the following extract for example:

“My father said, during all the years I lived with him, that I was the ugliest boy he had ever seen and I had absolutely no reason to doubt him. But it was not my father’s hatred of my frog-eyes which hurt me, this hatred proving, in time to be more resounding than real: I have my mother’s eyes. When my father called me ugly, he was not attacking me so much as he was attacking my mother. (No doubt, he was also attacking my real, and unknown, father). And I loved my mother. I knew that she loved me, and I sensed that she was paying an enormous price for me” – p.21 of ”The Devil Finds Work”

This passage literally struck me in the face when I read it. Baldwin seems so poignant yet ultimately powerful with his words. His love for his mother contrasts with the hatred that his step-father has for him, yet the passage is not one of pity. It just presents the fact in a poignant but not overly sentimental way. The way this man writes is so captivating. That sentence is about his father hating him for his eyes is deeply saddening. That is how this man is a phenomenal writer. When a writer can make someone feel something, I think that is when he/she is a success.