**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.
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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.