The AmNews had an exclusive interview with the producer, writer, and director André Gaines on his film “The Dutchman,” a psychological thriller, which opened in theaters on Jan. 2, after a screening at the African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York City. The film is an adaptation of the play “Dutchman,” written by playwright LeRoi Jones, who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.
“I first read the play when I was [earning an MFA] at NYU and my wife [Lauren Dandridge] actually was a theater major from when we both went to Northwestern University undergrad, and she had first mentioned the play to me, and I knew that it was a major piece of American literature and a seminal part of the Black Arts movement,” said Gaines, who also wrote and directed the film “The One and Only Dick Gregory,” and “Boo-Yah: A Portrait of Stuart Scott.”
“As soon as I read it, I just fell in love with it. I thought it was just an amazing piece of literature, just by itself. It was so poetic. It was so timely year after year.”
After acquiring the rights to the film from the Baraka family, which includes Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, casting began, and Gaines shared how he assembled an incredible cast to share the compelling story on the big screen, which he said is the hardest part.
“Andre Holland and I went to NYU together, so we’ve known each other for a long time,” he said of the actor cast as Clay, the Black businessman at the center of the film. “He was my first call. I knew he would get it right away as a true thespian.”
“The co-lead in many regards was Kate Mara,” he said. Mara plays Lula. “Kate actually called me, so she had read the script. I didn’t know her before. We’re good friends now.”
Zazie Beetz, who studied at the Harlem School of the Arts and attended LaGuardia High School in New York City; Aldis Hodge, Screen Actors Guild Award winner; and Stephen McKinley Henderson, Drama Desk Award winner and two-time Tony nominee, round out the film’s central cast.
“Henderson … is a theater legend and actually was dear friends with Amiri Baraka, and was in one of the stagings of ‘The Dutchman,’” he said. “Having that resource on set, with somebody who knew the man, means he would spout multiple pieces of wisdom, some of which made it into the film, and literally rewrote it on the spot. He would say these things about conversations that he and Amiri would have.”
Finally, I asked Gaines about the term “new Harlem” being used in the film.
“‘New Harlem’ was there from the beginning when we were writing the script,” he said. “[The characters are] trying to create a new environment when the environment that’s already there is near and dear and already special, and we don’t need to recreate it. Clay [Holland] is having that kind of inner turmoil with himself as being a Black man, not Black enough for his community, too Black for the white community, and what that really means.”
“The Dutchman” is showing at AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street and other theaters nationwide.