What differences did Baldwin draw between his experiences at the movies and at the theater? Do you agree with him?
Baldwin felt, rightly I think, that movies were escape and that what is on the screen is one’s fantasies played out. Theater, however, is about the tension between the real and the imagined. A line that especially struck me was that we don’t go to “see Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, one goes to see Sam Spade as Humphrey Bogart.” Movies are all about the star and the fantasy about the star. I think that’s probably true today with the exception of some small independent films. Movies really are about money, and they rely on “bankable” stars and don’t take the chances that theater takes.
I found the first essay, Congo Square, most interesting. It’s his commentary on movies he saw as a very young black man. These movies influenced him yet none of them were anything he could relate to. He never saw anyone like himself on the screen. However, when Bill takes him to see his first play - Macbeth- with an all black cast he tells us “nothing that I had seen before had prepared me for this”.