The Devil Finds Work: An Essay

James Baldwin

Sep 2013 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

From "the best essayist in this country” (The New York Times Book Review) comes an incisive book-length essay about racism in American movies that challenges the underlying assumptions in many of the films that have shaped our consciousness. 

Baldwin’s personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also an appraisal of American racial politics. Offering a look at racism in American movies and a vision of America’s self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin considers such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.

Here are our loves and hates, biases and cruelties, fears and ignorance reflected by the films that have entertained and shaped us. And here too is the stunning prose of a writer whose passion never diminished his struggle for equality, justice, and social change.

Ratings and reviews

Would love to read his take on the movies of Murphy Berry Washington Foxx Freeman V.Davis T.Perry...etc. Talk to me so you can see what's going on.

James Baldwin remains one of the highest level essaists, American or otherwise. 'The Devil Finds Work,' while ostensibly being the intersection of the film and the America of the 1930s - early 1970s, is also an object lesson in the critical reading of film (presaging the post-modern or deconstructionist 'schools'). It is at once wise, scathing, passionate, and loving.

About the author

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.