Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061165
I had no idea what Barry looked like when I walked into the bar in Williamsburg's Wythe Hotel. I don't read trades and barely even check reviews. I see a lot of films, but don't pay much attention to reporting on personalities and fame. I don't even watch award shows, preferring NBA and NCAA basketball. But as I scanned the room, my gaze stopped on a pair of the brightest eyes I have ever seen. They lit up the space around them but came from the face of what seemed to be a teenager. That can't be the head that houses the mature mind behind Moonlight or the one that adapted this amazing script. But it was, in fact, Barry Jenkins and he turned out to be one of the wisest and most mature people that I know. I started scouting locations a month before I was hired, looking for Baldwin's Harlem and Greenwich Village of 1972. Brooklyn was considered at first, but it was decided that this story was not only set in Harlem, but needed to be shot there. That Harlem itself was a character. Ultimately, many options were found in preparation for the director's first Beale Street scout. Barry arrived with his film family. Producers, cinematographer, costume designer, photographer. They were all younger than me and shared a bond born of a life in the trenches of the Art Wars. They had among them a closeness, a confidence and a trust. I knew I had to earn my way in. B C A. PHOTOGRAPH BY GORDON PARKS, "WOMAN AND DOG IN WINDOW, HARLEM, NEW YORK" C.1943. B. REFERENCE IMAGE. C. PHOTOGRAPH BY MANNY GERARD C.1970, 155TH ST. AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS AVE. FACING SOUTH. D. LENNOX AVENUE EXTERIOR STREET. SET PHOTO. A D