The Big Picture · Interview
December 13, 2018/ 43 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean Fennessey talks with Barry Jenkins about adapting James Baldwin's 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' the fallout from 'Moonlight' winning Best Picture, and the 10-hour 'Underground Railroad' shoot ahead of him.
13 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Barry Jenkins on 'If Beale Street Could Talk'
The new film. Jenkins adapted the Baldwin novel on spec around 2013 and spent four years securing the rights; a New York of interiors, shot on the Alexa 65, with the ending shifted more hopeful than the book's.
The Best Picture winner. Jenkins made its riskiest choices out of fear; Beale Street was the same instincts made with confidence.
His $12,000 debut, at its 10-year anniversary. The only film Baldwin's estate had seen when it granted him the rights.
Where Jenkins had seen Stephan James as John Lewis, which made him hesitate to cast him as Fonny.
James as Jesse Owens, the other 'too refined' role Jenkins had to put him through the ringer to get past.
The first film Jenkins saw at a festival, in film school; why he wanted Diego Luna, who said yes to a 45-second part.
Casting director Cindy Tolan discovered Jason Mitchell (Eazy-E) here, cited as proof of her instincts.
Jenkins joking about James's trajectory: 'Spike made the Malcolm X, and it is the Malcolm X.'
One of two foreign films Jenkins caught back-to-back at the Arclight on midterm election night.
The other; the sequence scored to Miles Davis's 'Elevator to the Gallows' is 'the kind of thing that makes you jealous.'
The Louis Malle film whose Miles Davis score is reused in that Burning sequence.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Teased for tomorrow's episode Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The Underground RailroadHomecomingAtlantaNarcosManiacTrue DetectiveThe Knick
Ads Caavo Control CenterNHTSA "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over"