In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves gathered surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance at Duke Ellington’s townhouse for cocktails and debate. They reminisced about the movement they built and argued over its meaning as Greaves recorded everything. It was never released — Greaves died in 2014 without completing the film — but now his son, David Greaves, has finished the job, editing the footage into the new documentary Once Upon a Time in Harlem. “You have this once-in-a-lifetime gathering of all these extraordinary people, and [you get] to see them remember things, and remember things differently,” says film critic Alonso Duralde.
“The very texture of the film itself transports you physically through just the color grading, and the grain of it,” says critic Dave White. “We don’t think about that much as viewers until we are bathing in the technique and formal qualities of another era.”
Duralde and White also review Wicker, Possible Love and Fatherland.
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