James Baldwin had an unrivaled understanding of politics and history and, above all, the human condition. His prose is laser sharp. His onslaught is massive and leaves no room for response. Every sentence is an immediate cocked grenade. You pick it up, then realize that it is too late. It just blows up in your face. And yet he still managed to stay human, tender, accessible.

From a young age, [James Baldwin] was watching all those different films. He's watching John Wayne killing off the Indians. He came to the point that the Indians were him. You had to educate yourself because the movies were not educating you. The movies were giving you a reflection of you that was not the truth. That's the trick. The movie was also giving a reflection of what the country is. Basically, a country that wanted itself to be innocent. That's the ambivalence of Hollywood.

The system gives you two minutes to phrase a whole history.

Can you imagine in 2016 there is a discussion about #OscarsSoWhite? Is it a novelty we've just discovered that the whole production machine is dominated by only one type of human being, excluding women, excluding gays, excluding minorities? This is not new.

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

Why would anything change that has not been changed since the existence of cinema? [James] Baldwin somehow wakes you up to reality. It takes you out of the dream - or out of the nightmare.

Just try to be yourself and resist complacency and ignorance. All you can do is work, work; work and be disciplined.