Skip to playerSkip to main content
Once Upon A Time In Harlem Movie Trailer HD - Plot synopsis: A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. For four hours, this extraordinary group – many of whom had not seen each other in fifty years – reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed and drank while wrestling with their place in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. Shot on 16mm film, newly restored and now directed by Greaves’ son David, this landmark film is at once a self-exploration and an inquiry into the heart of the critical mass of energy called the Harlem Renaissance. William Greaves’ intent was not only to document these artists and intellectuals as they spoke about their lives and work but also to plumb the meaning of the extraordinary creative period in which they lived to help us better understand how culture has been passed on from one generation to another and the role that the artist plays in keeping it alive.
#OnceUponATimeInHarlem
Transcript
00:00In Harlem, in 1972, acclaimed filmmaker William Greaves hosted a cocktail party for artists and intellectuals,
00:11the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance at the home of Duke Ellington.
00:19This was the final recorded gathering, representing one of the greatest creative movements in history.
00:32Well, the Renaissance period was a period through which I lived.
00:35Harlem became known as the Mecca of the New Negro, and it was a sort of standing question.
00:42What will it be tonight? Will it be straight socialism or Negroology?
00:45For the first time, we were aware of so many creative people who were black.
00:52And all of them were aiming at the same thing.
00:56The struggle of the Negro, the rise of the Negro.
01:04They wrote it up.
01:06U.B. Blake never shakes hands with a white man, which is a lie.
01:10I never offer my hand first.
01:14There were different points of view, and I think that's a mark of a civilized community.
01:22Aaron Douglas is an Afro-American artist.
01:25I'm calling him an artist, period.
01:33There are those of us who are now old, who have struggled, had no civil rights, and worked, and some
01:40of us died doing it.
01:42This is a historical moment, believe me, when I took it.
01:51The Harlem Renaissance isn't dead because it lives with everybody.
01:56Once upon a time in Harlem.
02:02To be here with all these intelligentsia, I'm afraid to open my mouth.
02:08Coming this fall.
Comments

Recommended