Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061165
B E A L E S T R E E T | P E R S P E C T I V E 1 1 5 I was with my daughter when my friend, producer Jeremy Kleiner, called to say that Barry Jenkins was going to direct James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, and that they wanted to talk to me about designing the film. At the time it was unclear if I was even available. I was not working because I could barely walk and was scheduled for spinal fusion surgery in the next few months. But my daughter, who heard the call, squealed out loud that of course, I was totally available. Both she and her older brother had read the book in the 10th-grade class of Celeste Tramontin, the most exciting high school teacher in their school. I credit my son's literature degree to her for inspiring him to understand the power of books and words. Now I was also inspired by this choice of material by this director. After achieving the highest cinematic honor possible for Moonlight, he could have made any film he wanted, and this was his choice, a small-budgeted story about love triumphing racism. I thought to myself that this guy must be special. There it was, James Baldwin, 1972 and New York City. Three of my favorite things. Add to that the enthusiasm of my kids, the great folks at Plan B, who I had worked with on Selma, and the director of the most inspirational film in a generation. It was starting to sound pretty rich. I majored in American history, specifically MLK and Vietnam. I try hard to work on films that address the serious political, emotional and existential issues of our time. I am an artist and relish depicting creation in cinema, as I've done in films such as Pollock and Across the Universe. I was also a kid living in uptown New York in 1972. This story sounded a lot like me. The only day Barry was in town to meet was on Father's Day, which almost scuttled the entire deal. Christmas, Passover, sure I'd come without hesitation. But Mother's and Father's Days are sacred in our family, and there were plans. It's also the day that I don't have to do the dishes and that was hard to pass up. Ironically, it was my kids that pushed me out the door to the meeting. They knew how perfect this all sounded and really wanted me to be a part of it. Before I met Barry, I looked at a wide range of images, trying to code a visual language for this story that I had, by now, read many times. Roy DeCarava has been a favorite urban photographer since I learned to hold a camera. The world he documented was the one I saw every day growing up, and the beautiful loneliness of his frames felt like Baldwin's story. The textured humanity of Romaire Bearden, the great Harlem artist, also stood out as a way to see the world of this story. I prepared a visual version of the script and headed out to my Father's Day meeting intending to find out if Barry Jenkins saw what I saw. A. FONNY'S BASEMENT APARTMENT. SET PHOTO.