Introduction
Not long after I watched Hans Augustave’s film I Held Him, I was rereading Another Country by James Baldwin. The following paragraph jumped out at me and got me thinking that Augustave’s film was the antidote to the pain Baldwin wrote about in his novel. This section from Another Country has Vivaldo talking about his dear friend, the drummer Rufus, who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. Vivaldo is talking to their mutual friend Eric.
“ . . . I was afraid to leave him alone. Well, when he looked at me, just before he closed his eyes and turned on his side away from me, all curled up, I had the weirdest feeling that he wanted me to take him in my arms, I had the feeling that he wanted someone to hold him, to hold him, and that, that night, it had to be a man. I got int the bed and I thought about it and I watched his back, it was as dark in that room, then as it is in this room, now, and I lay on my back and I didn’t touch him and I didn’t sleep. I remember that night as a kind of vigil. I don’t know whether he slept of not, I kept trying to tell from his breathing—but I couldn’t tell, it was too choppy, maybe he was having nightmares. I loved Rufus, I loved him, I didn’t want him to die. But when he was dead, I thought about it, thought about it—as I have—and I wondered, I guess I still wonder, what would have happened if I’d taken him in my arms, if I’d held him, if I hadn’t been—afraid. I was afraid that he wouldn’t understand that it was —only love. Only love. But, oh, Lord, when he died, I thought that maybe I could have saved him if I’d just reached out that quarter of an inch between us on that bed, and held him.” He felt the cold tears on his face, and he tried to wipe them away. “Do you know what I mean? I haven’t told Ida this, I haven’t told anyone, I haven’t thought about it since he died. But I guess I’ve been living with it. And I’ll never know. I’ll never know.”
“No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him—but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.”
On reading that section, I thought: Hans Augustave has taken Baldwin a step beyond—into the space where the holding actually happens and helps. Saying that his film reminds me of writing by James Baldwin is about the highest praise I could possibly give. Though Augustave has read Baldwin, he said he didn’t have Baldwin in mind when he wrote this film, but like the rest of us, Baldwin’s words and meaning have a way of seeping into our pores and gray matter.
—Jan Schmidt
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