Joe Talbot directs The Last Black Man In San Francisco as a poetic love letter to San Francisco. Jimmie Fails stars in this visually stunning film about gentrification. The two friends co-wrote the movie, which is inspired by Fails and his own personal story about growing up in the Bay Area. Brad Pitt serves as a producer on the project through his company Plan B. The movie earned The U.S. Dramatic Directing Award and A Special Jury Award for Creative Collaboration at the Sundance Film Festival.
Jimmie Fails shines as a hard on his luck dreamer who tries to reclaim his childhood home with his best friend Mont. Cast members Danny Glover, Tichina Arnold, Jonathan Majors, Mike Epps, Rob Morgan, Jamal Trulove and others round out the ensemble. There are several messages about the ever changing city and a symbolic Greek chorus to deliver memorable performances.
We meet Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) who roams through the streets of San Francisco riding a skateboard and talking with his best friend Montgomery aka Mont (Jonathan Majors). Jimmie fondly boasts about his grandfather’s proud legacy and reminisces about his childhood home. The film inspired by a true story unfolds as we learn that Jimmie’s father lost ownership of their house years ago.
Jimmie becomes obsessed with reclaiming ownership and makes daily visits to keep track of how the house is being maintained. The new white homeowner is annoyed by Jimmie’s constant daily visits. That doesn’t stop Jimmie from telling his tale about the history of the house that his grandfather built and passed down to his father. The city once had a vibrant African-American population, which has now been displaced, on the outskirts due to skyrocketing real estate costs. Jimmie is now a transient who crashes on his best friend’s floor, while craving the stability of a permanent address. Jimmie and Mont interact daily with a Hunts Point street crew comprised of childhood friends who are a metaphorical Greek chorus. The crewmembers Kofi, Niffy and Gunna constantly tease Jimmie and represent the changing landscape for San Francisco natives.
BlackFilm caught up with writer/actor Jimmie Fails and director Joe Talbot to discuss their thought provoking debut film. The film hosted a New York premiere at BAM with Danny Glover, Tichina Arnold, Jimmie Fails, Rob Morgan and Joe Talbot in attendance, which earned a fifteen-minute standing ovation from the sold out screening.
You both had a close relationship that inspired the film. How did you meet and how did you both collaborate to write the project?
Joe Talbot: Jimmie and I met when we were kids. We basically lived in the same neighborhood. Jimmie kind of moved around after he lost the house. And then we met in the Mission Borough area. When met I think one of the first things after we kind of had a heart to heart one night which felt unusual as teenage guys. And then we basically shared stories after that and we made some movies when we were growing up. I guess more formally we began working on this five years ago, pulling from parts of Jimmie’s life. Parts of things that happened to friends of ours. But we had never made a feature before, so this is our first time. So we made a concept trailer and we put it online. We started getting emails from people saying they wanted to help us out who had never made a movie before. Those people became our close band of collaborators on this film who helped us kind of together all develop it into the script that we took to Plan B and A24 years after that.
This is inspired by your life story. You mentioned at Sundance that a lot of things were inspired by your true experiences. Which parts were based on your childhood and which were developed for the narrative?
Jimmie Fails: Everything is emotionally true. It’s inspired by the true story of my grandpa owning that house and stuff. But I like to kind of leave that question sort of open honestly, respectfully but there are true events of my life that we put in there. Like the scene with me and my mom is something that happened. There are characters like Bobby that are based on real people. I like to leave that question respectfully open.
The movie is a love letter to San Francisco. The way that it is shot with the cinematography and the score is very sweeping. There are the dramatic elements as well as the Greek chorus that you integrated into the film to show a lot of the dynamics of the neighborhood. And Jimmie’s interaction with his fellow San Franciscans who feel displaced by gentrification in the neighborhood. Tell me about some of those themes and how important it was for you to include that in the film?
Joe Talbot: Yeah, I feel like we’ve been watching our city change over the course of our lives in ways that feel less and less relatable. I feel like at first when we started talking about this Jimmie and I were upset with these changes. And trying to find a way of like, ‘okay how can we document the city that we love. And make something that celebrates that city to show people what is so great about San Francisco. Part of what for us it is always a hard thing to define because it is little things, big things like an old bakery that you used to go to that is no longer there. It’s your good friend that you had heart to heart’s with that may not be able to exist anymore. It’s musicians who you look up to, so all of those things are in the film like San Quentin was a legendary rapper from San Francisco who has a small part in the film. Willie Hand, The Greek Chorus you mentioned are all guys that are from San Francisco, some of whom we grew up with so for us it’s trying show something that has a loose narrative thread. A part of that is I guess to be a San Franciscan is to walk around the city a lot and just have these random conversations with people that make you fall back in love with the city. It felt important to document that because the scary thing is since we wrapped filming. Already some of those locations are gone. It’s happening so fast.
Jimmie Fails: It’s been a year since we stopped filming. And yeah it is already. It just shows you how fast things are happening.
Is Montgomery’s character inspired by one of your friends as well?
Jimmie Fails: He was inspired by our friend Prentice Sanders. Obviously Jonathan with his talent sort of took what we wrote down in the script to inspire the character and crafted his own beautiful unique character… Jonathan just did his crazy whatever he did. He is insane.
Did he mentor you as an actor? This is your first feature film. He is trained as a dramatic actor. Did you have any conversations to increase the friendship between the both of you?
Jimmie Fails: Yeah, he flew out early before we started shooting and we were pretty much with each other every day and in the evening. Even during the shoot I was sleeping in his hotel room. It was like the movie. That’s why it made it easier. He mentored me a lot. He is a very hard worker.
The house you used that Jimmie owned. There is a great backstory behind that about the actual owner of the house. You wanted a Victorian house that could be a stand in for Jimmie’s actual childhood home. How important was that because the house is like another character in the film. Even how we are introduced to the house. It’s comedic. Initially you seem very inquisitive about the house where you are asking the owner and making sure that the upkeep is maintained. Once you find that opportunity where she has been evicted you essentially turn into a squatter in the location. Then you try to gain ownership of the house. Until certain other things happen with that real estate developer. Which is another example of what is happening with the gentrification in the area. Can you talk more about that as well?
Joe Talbot: Yeah, I think it’s true you know at the risk of sounding cliché. The house was a character in the movie. It was important to find a place that captured the magic of what home feels like in our imaginations as well as our realities. This big Victorian kind of beautiful property. We looked for over a year and knocked on the door one day of Jim Tyler’s house. The owner of the house. He welcomed us inside to our surprise. We got so used to walking inside these Victorians and seeing the insides completely gutted. We were afraid to go inside and see that happen again. When we got in there thank god it wasn’t. In fact it felt so transportive that the whole world outside kind of faded away. He had these organs in the house. It just felt like a real special space. To bring Jimmie there and see him inhabit that space. That was the real telling moment. It’s one thing if I like it. But I have to make sure that he falls for it too the way that we did. Jim Tyler was a really sweet guy. We didn’t have a lot of money to make this film or a lot of resources. I asked a lot of everyone. And it required a few guardian angels. He was one he gave it to use for far less than he should have. It was the only way we were able to make this movie in San Francisco because the house is so critical to it. We are so lucky that we met him.
With the Montgomery character at one point in order to raise awareness about what is going on in the neighborhood he stages a work of art. That represents the different people that he interacts with in the neighborhood. How representative is that of your true experience? That you incorporated into the film? What is the symbolism that you want the audience to take away from that?
Jimmie Fails: From Montgomery’s play? That was his way of… without giving away anything. It was his way of telling his friend something that he found out in the movie. It was more to show the different sides of Black men. Not just specifically that but the different sides of people. Just people aren’t one thing. I think that was the main objection of that play. That there are consequences that you have to wear this mask around people.
I noticed the reaction of some of the members of the Greek chorus once Kofi is no longer a member. I don’t want to give too much away. That has to deal with the depiction of masculinity in the Black community in a different way. Where they are able to emote. It seems like a therapy session. Where they are discussing their emotions and connecting to what is going on which happens in neighborhoods and cities around the country. A lot of people don’t have that opportunity to have that kind of emotional catharsis in the moment to express how they feel. Can you talk more about it?
Jimmie Fails: (laughing) You kind of hit everything that I was going to say. I think it definitely was an exploration of masculinity and how it can be toxic. And the consequences of that and that cycle. Shedding light to it. You want to get rid of toxic masculinity as much as possible.
We were discussing your family house. How much is truthful about the origins of your family home? Did your grandfather build it? Because there is that history where at one point there was a mass migration of the African-American community from different parts of the South to different areas around the country. Did your grandfather actually build the home that you lived in? Was that just that folklore that he created?
Jimmie Fails: You have to watch the movie for that one.
So that part is truthful? What is shown in the film is what is actually inspired by your true life?
Jimmie Fails: Yeah.
The scene with your mom. Was that your actual mother in the film? Are you estranged from your mom?
Jimmie Fails: Yeah, I am…It was just a casual encounter with my mom. Because it was just an event that happened.
You have a phenomenal cast. How did you get Danny Glover, Mike Epps and Tichina Arnold and other people from the neighborhood to be involved in the project?
Joe Talbot: For your first movie it was such an honor to work with all those people. Tichina and some of those people you say like you grew up watching them and they are these incredible performers. If some of these grew up and they aren’t from the Bay. What people can still feel like the Bay. Imagining Tichina with this hot boyfriend Daewon Song who is a legendary skater. Felt like a very Bay area couple.
Tichina just brought with her the energy you see in the film.
Jimmie Fails: She did audition. This is a small film. She liked the script. She is doing a lot of stuff. The fact that she even auditioned is super cool. And the audition stuff is crazy. It just felt right when she auditioned.
Joe Talbot: Mike is the funniest person in the world. But Danny Glover is a native San Franciscan. Credit Jimmie with getting Danny Glover actually he called Jimmie.
Jimmie Fails: He just called on my phone. I was just walking home and I just got a call. ‘Hey it’s Danny’. I was like. ‘Oh sh@t!’ I had been explaining about the movie. They had been trying to get a hold of him for a while. I was thinking how did he just call? I don’t even know how he got my number. We were just talking about the old Fillmore and stuff. I was explaining to him. We just got lucky man.
Joe Talbot: It was luck, but also Jimmie put so much of his life into something so bravely. I think that artists recognize the vulnerability it takes to do that. More than anybody and I think these people who have been in some cases people who we’ve looked up to. It’s always an honor when they want to come on and work on something that you have done. But I think that a great deal of that is them looking at Jimmie. And the power of his story and seeing the potential in this, so we were just really lucky that they chose to do that.
You are a musician as well. What was your input into the score? How long did it take for you to work with collaborating on something like that as well?
Joe Talbot: I’m the worst person to work with a composer, because I have way too many opinions. I don’t actually play anything very well but I love music so much that I am very particular about it. I was always afraid trying to find a composer for this. Someone who would both put up with me and then be able to write things
I couldn’t write, but I got really lucky when I found Emile. Basically we spent a lot of time sharing music. Him playing me melodies. Every now and then much less than his original compositions in the movie. I would sing him a melody. Something that came to me in the middle of the night. It speaks to his talent and his humility.
We wanted to create a score that felt regal. And captured the feeling of this deposed prince trying to get back the family throne. That was something that we would talk about alot. So brass and woodwinds featuring prominently and also making music which is the kind of music that makes you want to hum or it stays in your head. Danny Elfman and Michael Nyman. These beautiful melodies that in a way live as long as the movies do. Sometimes even longer than the movies do. Our hope was to create something melodic, big and lush. That kind of honored the power and the imagination in Jimmie’s story.
There was a huge success with Sorry To Bother You last year. There is a hunger with the audience for movies with themes that have a message. What is the ultimate message that you want the audience to get from this film?
Joe Talbot: I don’t know that I can say. I want to leave the film’s ending and meaning open to interpretation. I do think that in a way it’s about the city that we love. And it is through out own experiences trying to wrestle with the city. And what it means to be from that city and stay in that city is what this movie came from.
Jimmie Fails: There are so many different themes. I’m not really sure which one. Vulnerability, love I suppose that is the core of it all.
This was inspired by your childhood. There was someone from the Greek Chorus that you knew from childhood. Have any other people from the neighborhood seen the film?
Jimmie Fails: Some people saw it at the premiere. From what I felt at the premiere and the Castro. People are responding very well to it.
Joe Talbot: It’s so fun going to Castro and hearing people shouting at the screen. And the real estate guy goes to St. Ignatius, which is a douchier school in San Francisco. And there is like boo…It felt like that is what you hope for is that you are going to make something that people engage with afterwards. And it doesn’t just live in these art houses around the country but with the community that it is by and it is about.
Jamal Trulove who plays Kofi he is a native San Franciscan. He has an interesting story. How did you find him? How important was it for you to have someone with his backstory to portray that role in the film?
Joe Talbot: He has such a unique backstory that it wasn’t something that I think we sought out to find for that role but it did once we met Jamal become a really important part of how he approached that character. Because Jamal said to me when I met him the first day, which was at United Plays. Which is a program in San Francisco. He came in and auditioned just randomly on the spot. He said. ‘I understand this character. There are parts of me in this character. I think after having been through the awful thing he went through being framed for murder. He’s had a lot of time to think about. He always says he wants to turn the story of his life from tragedy into triumph. I think for him he is also like He was doing that long before he met us. He’s been giving back in big ways in San Francisco ever since he was exonerated. But I think for him he is also like me and Jimmie, a storyteller. You know that immediately after you get around Jamal. He is always telling stories. I’m so glad that it worked out that way where I got to work with him and meet him. He is one of the many people in this movie coming out of the city that I think had a lot of talent. That we are going to be seeing for years to come.
The Last Black Man In San Francisco opens in theaters on Friday, June 7th.
