'Once Upon a Time in Harlem' Celebrates the Harlem Renaissance
Set in Duke Ellington’s townhouse on a summer evening in 1972, Once Upon a Time in Harlem follows four hours of conversation, laughter, and critique between some of the Harlem Renaissance’s most prominent artists, writers, and icons.
The newly restored project was shot on 16mm film by renowned filmmaker William Greaves, and completed fifty years later by Greaves’ son David. It functions as a living archive of one of the most important artistic movements of that time period, as artists including Eubie Blake, Romare Bearden, Arna Bontemps, and more discuss the significance of the Harlem Renaissance and the importance of cultural preservation.
The documentary tells history through a uniquely personal lens, with the artists themselves speaking on their accomplishments and how they hope that period continues to influence and teach those that come after them. What makes it particularly interesting is that the perspectives of each person in the room are not presented as as a polished recounting. Rather, the artists question and challenge each other about certain memories from the Harlem Renaissance, making it feel all the more real rather than a figment of movement from over a century ago.
Figures like Regina Andrews, the first African American branch head in the New York Public Library (NYPL), and Jet magazine's longtime society editor Gerri Major spoke to the social development of the time period, offering spaces for poets like Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen to develop and practice their craft. While appreciating the contributions of male poets, activist Louise Thompson Patterson also reminded the room to acknowledge the women of the Renaissance movement such as Zora Neale Hurston and Jessie Redmon Fauset.
The most captivating element of the film for me was the way photographs by James Van Der Zee and Ernest Crichlow are woven into the narrative. Rather than functioning solely as archival images, their work becomes a visual partner to the firsthand recollections of the artists, which allowed the past to unfold through both image and memory. The balance between the photographs and personal accounts adds remarkable depth, and gives viewers a more intimate understanding of the world being explored.
There is also something almost poetic about the film's existence. Most times with historical periods or iconic figures, filmmakers lean into biographical dramas to tell a person's life story, but this specific format itself is about preserving history while literally being an artifact that preserved it.
By bringing together many of its era’s defining figures, the Greaveses breathe new energy into a cultural legacy by zeroing in on the people who helped shape the Harlem Renaissance. The movie ultimately creates an immersive atmosphere, and makes viewers feel as though they are sitting right alongside the cultural giants who shaped the early 20th century period. Vibrant, intimate, and deeply moving, Once Upon a Time in Harlem is a powerful tribute to a generation whose influence continues to resonate beyond the iconic uptown New York neighborhood that I grew up in and continue to live in today.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem is in select theaters October 16.
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