{"id":2922,"date":"2017-02-01T00:53:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T06:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackworldcinema.net\/blog\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2025-06-03T00:29:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T05:29:43","slug":"29-the-polymath-or-the-life-and-opinions-of-samuel-r-delany-gentleman-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackworldcinema.net\/blog\/2017\/02\/01\/29-the-polymath-or-the-life-and-opinions-of-samuel-r-delany-gentleman-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Future Month-Feb.9th: The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman (2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tuesday, Feb 9, 7pm The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman (2007) 80 min. Directed by Fred Barney Taylor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by
\nquestioning the society\u2019s values, can force it to change.\u201d In the tradition of Jean Genet, Delany teaches us that revolution is both personal and political. Taylor\u2019s film mirrors Delany’s lives as a queer, biracial man whose writings (and myriad other artistic output) rock the foundation of what we know about sexuality and social space.<\/p>\n

“Fred Barney Taylor\u2019s recent documentary portrait of the writer Samuel R. Delany, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman<\/em> (2007), is in fact a double portrait. It is at once an affectionate portrayal of the prolific science fiction author and cultural critic known to his friends as \u201cChip\u201d and a picture of New York City\u2019s changing queer sexual landscape. Delany acts as our \u201cguide,\u201d \"\"<\/a>not unlike eccentric New York tour guide Timothy \u201cSpeed\u201d Levitch in The Cruise<\/em> (Miller, 1998), whose<\/p>\n

theories of \u201cthe cruise\u201d (pedestrian tactics of enjoyment) versus \u201cthe anti-cruise\u201d (controlling technocratic strategies, the ideology of the \u201cgrid plan\u201d) have great affinity with both Delany and de Certeau. Like Delany\u2019s brilliantly reflexive memoir The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village<\/em>, Taylor\u2019s film illustrates Delany\u2019s life through a series of what Roland Barthes called biographemes<\/em> (preferences, inflections, details to which the author might be distilled). And like Delany\u2019s more recent book, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue<\/em>, Taylor\u2019s documentary intervenes in a series of debates about the fate of New York City sexual subcultures and practices after the decimating effects of AIDS and the Forty-second Street Development Project (a provocative connection, to be sure). I will go on to argue that this concern for queer space aligns The Polymath<\/em> with the activist video Fenced Out <\/em>(Paper Tiger Television, 2001) and another recent documentary Gay Sex in the 70s <\/em>(Lovett, 2005).”<\/p>\n

\u201cAn affectionate portrait of the prolific science fiction author and culturalcritic\u2026and a picture of New York City\u2019s changing queer sexual landscape\u201d. \u2013 Nicolas De Villiers, Jump Cut<\/p>\n