Largely unsung to the masses, Murray, who died in 1985 at the age of 74, was revered in legal and scholarly circles, and lived an extraordinary life that’s brought clearly into focus in Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s vivid documentary portrait My Name Is Pauli Murray (★★★★☆). Whether Murray might want us referring to the memoirs as “hers,” “his,” or “theirs” is a matter addressed by enlightening interviews with trans activists Raquel Willis and Dolores Chandler, former coordinator at the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina. The film also includes Murray’s own moving correspondence with her doctors putting into arresting words the gender dysphoria that marked her existence from childhood. My Name Is Pauli Murray relays the facts of the subject’s psychological distress with utter sensitivity, taking cues from the candor in her own poetic language. “America, be what you proclaim yourself to be!”My Name Is Pauli Murray is playing at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, and is available for streaming October 1 on Prime Video.

Source: MetroXpress September 24, 2021 16:54 UTC