The Importance and Beauty of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk

In 2016, a film won the Oscars that was unlike any other. This film was Moonlight, a “story of a lifetime” according to its promotional poster. Directed by Barry Jenkins and funded by the increasingly well-known indie film studio A24, Moonlight is the three-part story of a Black man named Chiron. In the first part, Chiron is a kid who goes by “Little” and lives with his addicted mother in Liberty City, Miami at the height of the crack epidemic. He soon meets local drug dealer Juan, who becomes his mentor in a sense. It is revealed that “Little”  is gay, as he is called the f-slur and bullied by the boys in school. In this section of the film, Juan and Little are in the water when Juan tells him, “In the moonlight, Black boys look blue.” Juan’s statement reveals a theme of identity as Black men are often forced to hide the “softer” or more vulnerable parts of themselves, especially those who are queer. The second and third parts, in which  Chiron goes by “Chiron” and “Black” respectively, feature a journey of self-discovery that is more common than is realized for Black queer persons, a more painful aspect being his short-lived intimacy with his friend Kevin. Due to the way in which  Moonlight tackles the difficult aspects of life that shape Chiron’s identity and contribute to his development as a person, it will go down as one of the most important Black stories shown on film in the 21st century. 

Following the resounding success of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins had some high expectations to meet. Anyone who has watched his following feature film If Beale Street Could Talk, released in 2018 and based on James Baldwin’s novel of the same name, knows that he not only met but exceeded these expectations. From the start of the film when Tish, a 19-year-old Black woman, and her childhood friend turned fiance Fonny, are walking down the streets of Harlem hand-in-hand to Nicholas Brittell’s deeply moving song Agape, , audiences are met with an image of Black love that is beautiful enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. A majority of the well-known feature films with Black characters like the 2013 Oscar best picture winner 12 Years a Slave focus solely on Black trauma.While in If Beale Street Could Talk the main conflict is Fonny’s wrongful imprisonment, the central focus of the film is the love between its protagonists as well as the support that both of their families offer throughout this challenging time and when Tish realizes she is pregnant with Fonny’s baby. From emotional scenes like when the young couple is on the subway and Tish realizes that “He was the most beautiful person [she] had seen in all [her] life,” to when Tish’s mother, played by Regina King, breaks down after attempting to get the woman who falsely accused Fonny of rape to retract her statement, If Beale Street Could Talk brings to the screen a depiction of Black love that is as powerful as it is beautiful. The film leaves a clear and resonant  message– in the face of racism and struggle, Black people have been and continue to be able to overcome with the power of love. As a Black viewer stares directly into the faces of Tish and Fonny as they reassure each other that they will be in love no matter what, they are able to be a part of an intimate moment between two Black characters that is scarcely seen in feature films. Due to If Beale Street Could Talk’s unapologetic display of Black love, it is an incredibly important film in the Black community, and it continues to be appreciated by wider audiences.