The “Carte Blanche” film series at MOMA, programmed by the prodigious science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, concludes this week with two personal works. He discusses his childhood in Harlem and his life as a gay man in nineteen-sixties New York in Fred Barney Taylor’s illuminating documentary “The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman,” from 2007. Delany displays his directorial art in the 1971 featurette “The Orchid,” which blends street theatre and joyful eroticism with ingenious special effects.
The Personal Works of Samuel R. Delany
At MOMA, the prodigious science-fiction writer programs the “Carte Blanche” film series, including his 1971 featurette, “The Orchid.”
Photograph by Hannah Whitaker for The New Yorker
