Dave's Reviews > The Devil Finds Work: An Essay

Brilliant look at movies and their disconnect from racial reality, from Baldwin’s childhood, adulthood, and the present-day (of the 1970s). The long essay flows less smoothly from film to film than I could wish; his leaps of logic are often difficult for me—very challenging music. But each film gets a ruthless, often sardonic analysis, with Baldwin’s point often being the unbelievability caused by forcing the story into an acceptable structure for white audiences.

Best parts are his isolated illuminations, which read like poetry and convince like revealed truth. Like this one about Lady Sings the Blues and how the film refuses to be true to its source material—the autobiography of its subject, Billie Holiday: “That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat. The victim’s testimony must, therefore, be altered.”