Documentary underscores his influence on today’s artists
As part of the longstanding exhibition on view at the Weisman Woodhouse Family Gallery, the University of Minnesota held a screening of “James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket” with a discussion facilitated by Assistant Professor Dr. Megan Finch.
The exhibition “More Various, More Beautiful, and More Terrible” takes its name from James Baldwin’s 1963 article “A Talk to Teachers,” in which he wrote, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”
The gallery as a whole depicts works with histories as complex as our nation’s, with an expansive array of selections that captures various experiences as they were—like a snapshot in time.
“The Price of the Ticket” takes rare archival footage and weaves stories from some of those closest to Baldwin to craft a tale as captivating and important as the man himself. The documentary both opens and closes with Baldwin’s funeral, which creates an interesting narrative arc, as if the documentary is like a eulogy by director Karen Thorsen.
Whether it was meeting with labor workers in San Francisco’s Black community or working alongside other civil rights icons during Mississippi’s “Freedom Summer,” Baldwin was able to write so vividly because of his grassroots involvement in many of the core movements that sought Black liberation.
Because of his direct experiences, Baldwin has remained a mainstay in much of the discourse involving contemporary Black writers. Dr. Finch noted, “Often, the question of Baldwin’s significance to my own trajectory as a scholar comes up no matter what the context is, and I think that tells us something about Baldwin’s significance.”
The documentary covers Baldwin’s exodus to France to seek conditions more favorable to his trajectory as a writer. In his late ‘20s to early ‘30s, Baldwin quickly gained a reputation for his keen understanding of humanity and the struggles that bind much of society together.
Though quickly embraced by the literary elite in France, the documentary shows how Baldwin could not ignore the abhorrent conditions Black folks were subject to in the United States. Thus, in the early 1960s, Baldwin finds himself back in New York in the crux of the Civil Rights Movement.
Thorsen’s “The Price of the Ticket” also showcases the unique role Baldwin played in the Civil Rights Movement as an openly gay Black leader who, much to the criticism of his contemporaries, refused to decouple his sexuality from his racial identity. He demanded to bring his whole self to the movement, rejecting the notion of piecemeal liberation that would require him to silence part of himself for other parts to be accepted.
The film chronicles many of Baldwin’s striking rebukes of what he calls “benevolent racism” that often seeks to speak for marginalized folks rather than allowing folks the autonomy to advocate for themselves. Many of Baldwin’s later works chronicled in the film show his deep understanding of class, and how race and class are inextricably connected to one another. He notes that racial progression is not a profit-driven practice that seeks to recreate class divisions, rather progression comes with a deeper understanding of one another.
At the core of Baldwin’s writings, and many of the writings of Baldwin’s contemporaries, is an almost tangible sense of unvarnished truth—raw and real. “The Price of the Ticket” shares many of these truths that bind us together, from Baldwin’s writings about the struggles of Algerians in France to the novelists who painted portraits of the horrors of everyday life many grew up with in the States. It’s that deep understanding of truth Baldwin and his contemporaries immediately recognized as necessary to document.
“There are people like Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son,’ or Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘Beloved,’” Dr. Finch said. “I just remember thinking, ‘My god, how can someone do this with language?’”
As we approach what would be James Baldwin’s 100th birthday this August, “The Price of the Ticket” is a remarkable reflection point into the work of one of this country’s strongest bearers of witness. “The Price of the Ticket” is available to stream now on PBS.
“More Various, More Beautiful, and More Terrible” is on view at the Weisman Art Gallery Woodhouse Family Gallery now through May 2026, Wednesday 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Thursday and Friday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and weekends 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at 333 E River Rd. Minneapolis, MN 55455. Admission is free.
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