A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.
Isaac Julien
Director
Ben Ellison
Alex
Matthew Baidoo
Beauty
Akim Mogaji
James
John Wilson
Karl
Dencil Williams
Marcus
Guy Burgess
Dean
Dublin James Wahlberg
Carlos
Harry Donaldson
Leatherboy
Jimmy Somerville
Angel
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Mansfield Park61%
Love Is Strange63%
Lilting69%
The Lion in Winter74%
Little Lord Fauntleroy73%
Eleanor the Great69%
Pretty Boy76%
Les Misérables73%
Sleep, My Love63%
Repeat Performance61%
Advise & Consent72%
Ben-Hur78%
Nightmare Alley71%
The Dead68%
August Rush74%
Avalon High61%
Won't Back Down61%
Belle71%
The Hill76%
