A new film invites you to eavesdrop on one of the greatest conversations in New York City history.<\/p>\n
In 1972, legendary documentarian William Greaves filmed a party he threw for Harlem Renaissance luminaries. With help from his family, “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” brings that decades-old footage to theaters.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 6, 1972, Greaves invited roughly two dozen Harlem Renaissance luminaries to Duke Ellington\u2019s apartment on Riverside Drive. He threw a cocktail party for the aging artists, writers and intellectuals, with an unusual request: He wanted to film their lively conversations and have several of them return the next day for one-on-one interviews.<\/p>\n
Some of the attendees hadn’t seen each other since the 1920s. Greaves ended up with 60,000 feet of 16 mm film capturing their reflections on what it was like to be part of such an influential artistic movement. He worked on the film for the remainder of his life, editing short segments and filming some additional B-roll, but died in 2014 without ever completing the project.<\/p>\n
After his death, the footage remained in storage, largely unseen by the public \u2014 until now. Greaves\u2019 son, David Greaves, and granddaughter, Liani Greaves, stepped in a few years ago to pick up where he left off. The resulting 100-minute documentary, \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Harlem,\u201d premiered to great acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, where critics described it as \u201cexquisitely crafted<\/a>\u201d and \u201ca vital reclamation of a precious history<\/a>.\u201d It is now playing at Film Forum and Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather considered it to be the most important thing that he\u2019d ever put on film,\u201d Liani, credited as a producer on the film, said in a recent interview. She and her father, the film\u2019s director, also worked with editors Anne de Mare and Lynn True.<\/p>\n I met up with David and Liani outside Ellington\u2019s Riverside Drive apartment building on a recent afternoon. They were still basking in the glow of having screened the film for working artists \u2014 many of whom resided in Harlem \u2014 at the Studio Museum the previous night. While the Ellington family no longer lives in this particular building, Liani said she likes to imagine something creative is still happening up there.<\/p>\n David and Liani each worked with Greaves during his lifetime. As we made our way to an outdoor cafe in Riverside Park, they told me about their goal of carrying on his legacy. They do so not only to honor him but also his wife and fellow artist, Louise Archambault Greaves. Louise managed finances and distribution of documentaries such as \u201cStill a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class\u201d and \u201cSymbiopsychotaxiplasm.\u201d She made it her mission to restore Greaves\u2019 work and create an archive of it until her own death in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather has a quote in which he says, \u2018God created the dynamic of conflict and only out of this cosmic play can anything be created or manifested or condensed. The play is the thing,\u2019\u201d Liani said. \u201cAt the very beginning of this process, even when Louise was passing away, this was a sort of tenet of who we would be moving forward and how we would think about this film.\u201d<\/p>\n David, who was in his 20s at the time, was one of the camera operators who attended the Harlem party with his father. (There were four cameras overall.) He said he has few actual memories from that day in 1972, but relived the experience through the footage. Electric energy pulses through \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Harlem\u201d as attendees like photographer James Van Der Zee, painter Aaron Douglas, civil rights advocate Frank Horne and activists Richard B. Moore and Louise Thompson Patterson take turns reminiscing, reflecting and delivering impassioned odes to their contemporaries.<\/p>\n Years ago, Greaves gave David general advice on the editing process: \u201cIf something affects you viscerally, David, go with it,\u201d the son recalled his father saying. What stirred David and Liani most throughout the tens of hours of footage were all the debates. Partygoers go back and forth on Black nationalism, especially as espoused by Marcus Garvey, and the feasibility of socialism. Patterson wonders whether the assembled group of people undervalued the role of women like the late sculptor Augusta Savage. This sparks conversations about her contributions, as well as those of Zora Neale Hurston, a leading writer of that era.<\/p>\n George Schuyler, a journalist and social critic who became more conservative as he aged, says in the film that \u201cthe mark of a civilized community\u201d is its ability to debate. This resonated with Liani, who said she considers it an important reminder amid \u201csuch a lack of empathy in the political climate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s one of the things that this film does, is really remind us of who we are as a nation and what we\u2019re capable of doing and being,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Liani recalled another quote from her grandfather, which opens the film: \u201cA man\u2019s social history is his essence.\u201d As we sat in Riverside Park, she recited the rest: \u201cAnd it\u2019s from this that he draws his motivation, strength and his will.\u201d<\/p>\n David and Liani bookend \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Harlem\u201d with Greaves\u2019 writing; he narrates his poem \u201cIn Quiet Wood\u201d over the final scene. It was important to them to preserve as much of his perspective as possible.<\/p>\n