LOOKING FOR LANGSTON

A remarkable piece made with sensitivity, inspiring vision, and quiet contemplation of an undeterred, queer sub-society. 

There’s a bubbling frustration, both sexually and in anticipation of social reform within this film. It’s an anger near-identical to the contemporary thought which hardly comes off as angry during the film. The overcoming of stigma, being a homosexual and adapting your behaviour to not be chastised in public is compounded by a stigmatic love for black men who attempt to navigate gay high society but end up being used, and then tossed out by the white class. 

It’s a film with the attitude our time is coming, and we will suffer to express our gayness together, and in the art we create, in the hope that the generations that come after do not suffer the same degree of internal plight. It’s rich and heartfelt. The film’s mere existence is almost an assurance that this time has come or is close to it. With voiceover narration performing open-wounded poetry from the time, including work from the person the whole piece is an ode to, Langston Hughes. It’s also an appreciation and zealous depiction of the Harlem Renaissance, which it looks back on with grand respect and generates an ethereal presence: like a gay man’s heaven. 

Looking for Langston is not only a short film (although this is how I’ve consumed it). It’s centrepiece in a larger art exhibition curated by its director Isaac Julien. Julien’s film on its own is a phenomenal achievement. While hinting at its larger context it delves deep into the poetic works of Langston Hughes and his contemporaries, utilising their work to form the backbone of the film’s narrative drive. It uses the funeral of Langston Hughes to ripple through time, connecting the time we are watching the film, in the contemporary, with the swinging past of the 1920s and early 30s Harlem. Its imagery, like gradual ocean waves, deserted dreamscapes with looming flags, and the emulation of chiaroscuro and expressionistic lighting styles, inform a strong and palpable mood that makes the experience of watching it something hard to shake off. Its depiction of the male body is done with tasteful objectivity combined with some lustful gazing, turning the external features of its cast into the film’s biggest strength. In my opinion, not only is this an excellent love letter and meditation of a poet who was influential in black-gay America in the twentieth century, it’s a lightning-in-a-bottle masterwork that deserves a look from not only its LGBTQ+ perspective. 

Watched on Vimeo, on January 6th 2024. This piece was written on January 8th 2024.