Released in South Africa on 15 November 1951, Cry, the Beloved Country was among the
very first feature films of Sidney Poitier‘s long career. The then 24-year-old plays Theophilus Msimangu, a reverend who assists fellow minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) in nurturing his ill sister and locating his son Absalom (Lionel Ngakane), who has left without contact. Their cause takes them through Johannesburg and the newly imposed apartheid system, exposing its layers of injustice and dysfunction.
Cry, the Beloved Country is novel in its presentation of black African perspectives some 15 years before the civil rights pictures of the 1960s, such as Poitier’s own Look Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Those two films are likely to feature in any retrospective of cinema and race, but not Cry, the Beloved Country.
Why is that? Well, the pacing is deliberate; characters speak at length and often about banal details.
very first feature films of Sidney Poitier‘s long career. The then 24-year-old plays Theophilus Msimangu, a reverend who assists fellow minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) in nurturing his ill sister and locating his son Absalom (Lionel Ngakane), who has left without contact. Their cause takes them through Johannesburg and the newly imposed apartheid system, exposing its layers of injustice and dysfunction.
Cry, the Beloved Country is novel in its presentation of black African perspectives some 15 years before the civil rights pictures of the 1960s, such as Poitier’s own Look Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Those two films are likely to feature in any retrospective of cinema and race, but not Cry, the Beloved Country.
Why is that? Well, the pacing is deliberate; characters speak at length and often about banal details.
- 10/18/2023
- by Jack Hawkins
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Zoltan Korda’s 1951 adaptation of Alan Paton’s crusading novel is filled with passion and moral fortitude
Zoltan Korda’s thrilling movie version of Alan Paton’s novel was first released in 1951, when South Africa’s racist apartheid policy was only three years of age and maybe enough of a novelty to be thought of as something amenable to second thoughts, capable of being reformed or even abolished. Paton’s novel itself was published in 1948, the same year as apartheid appeared. Now this film is rereleased, revealing again that it has a crusading preacher’s urgency and moral seriousness, appropriate for a story of priests.
After a slow start, the movie hits a muscular, compelling stride; it is a drama with an obvious biblical parallel, but also a quite genuine Shakespearean resonance in the tragic dimension of its final act and the Montague/Capulet reconciliation it envisions for black and white,...
Zoltan Korda’s thrilling movie version of Alan Paton’s novel was first released in 1951, when South Africa’s racist apartheid policy was only three years of age and maybe enough of a novelty to be thought of as something amenable to second thoughts, capable of being reformed or even abolished. Paton’s novel itself was published in 1948, the same year as apartheid appeared. Now this film is rereleased, revealing again that it has a crusading preacher’s urgency and moral seriousness, appropriate for a story of priests.
After a slow start, the movie hits a muscular, compelling stride; it is a drama with an obvious biblical parallel, but also a quite genuine Shakespearean resonance in the tragic dimension of its final act and the Montague/Capulet reconciliation it envisions for black and white,...
- 10/5/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
I have been engrossed for the last week in Infidel, an autobiography that chronicles the life and times of political activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and how she became who and what she is. Ms. Ali will be familiar to those readers of this column, who, like me, strive to never miss an episode of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. She has also appeared on Fox News, CNN, and just about every news organization around the world – though I don’t know if she has ever been invited onto Al-Jazeera, even here on the U.S. version.
But if not, here’s a short version of Ms. Ali’s biography. Born into a traditional Muslim family in Somalia in 1969, her father was Hirsi Magan Isse, a leader of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and who was actively involved in the Somalian Revolution against the Siad Barre government.
But if not, here’s a short version of Ms. Ali’s biography. Born into a traditional Muslim family in Somalia in 1969, her father was Hirsi Magan Isse, a leader of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and who was actively involved in the Somalian Revolution against the Siad Barre government.
- 4/13/2015
- by Mindy Newell
- Comicmix.com
Marlon Brando in ‘A Dry White Season,’ James Earl Jones in ‘Cry the Beloved Country’: Apartheid movies (photo: Marlon Brando in ‘A Dry White Season’) (See previous post: “Nelson Mandela: Sidney Poitier and ‘Malcolm X’ Cameo Apperance.”) Besides the Nelson Mandela movies discussed in the previous two posts, South Africa’s apartheid has been portrayed in a number of films in the last few decades. Among the most notable ones are the following: Zoltan Korda’s Cry the Beloved Country (1951). Based on Alan Paton’s novel, this British-made film features Canada Lee and Charles Carson as two men struggling to deal with the disastrous consequences of apartheid. Ralph Nelson’s The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine star as, respectively, an anti-apartheid South African activist and a British engineer on the run from South Africa’s secret police, headed by racist Nicol Williamson. Chris Menges’ A World Apart...
- 12/7/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I was a sceptic; I thought it could not be done. I did not believe that London could host such an important global event, let alone pull it off with such grandiose confidence. But now the Olympics are over and to be honest, I don’t want it to end. Particularly considering my last images may be that of Jessie J ruining Queen, or Liam Gallagher proving he needs Noel. But with Britain standing 3rd in the medal rankings, we can be proud of our athletes’ efforts. Whether it was handball, hockey or dressage, my eyes were opened to the magic of the Olympics and I’m sad to see them go. So why not cling on for a little bit longer and join me as I attempt to blur the realms of Film and the Summer Olympics.
Hopefully you read part 1 where I chose films that represented: North Korea,...
Hopefully you read part 1 where I chose films that represented: North Korea,...
- 8/17/2012
- by Dan Lewis
- Obsessed with Film
Alan Paton followed up Cry, the Beloved Country, his prophetic 1948 bestseller published on the eve of apartheid, with the lesser known Too Late the Phalarope, the tragic story of an Afrikaner police officer prosecuted under the Immorality Act after succumbing to his desire for a young black woman. Set in present-day South Africa, Beauty follows a similar pattern by challenging another barrier of prejudice. Its transgressive protagonist, François (impressively played by Deon Lotz), is a dull, long-married Boer running a timber business in Bloemfontein. Racially prejudiced and in denial over his sexuality, he starts stalking a handsome young lawyer in Cape Town. But before this he engages with equally suppressed friends in brutal homosexual orgies in the countryside. This is Death in Venice African-style, though lacking the reticence and resonance of Mann's novella. Presumably it's commenting on an emotionally distorted society that needs to get its house in order.
DramaWorld cinemaPhilip French
guardian.
DramaWorld cinemaPhilip French
guardian.
- 4/21/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
"The miracle of Lionel Rogosin's apartheid drama Come Back, Africa isn't that it's a solid, affecting artifact of a cruel society, but that it exists at all," begins Bill Weber in Slant. "In the wake of his debut film, the New York skid-row chronicle On the Bowery, Rogosin set out in 1957 for Johannesburg, and for months laid the groundwork for surreptitiously shooting a follow-up that would lay bare the pain and humiliations of black South Africans subjugated by the white majority, enlisting native writers Lewis Nkosi and Bloke Modisane to collaborate on the scenario. Mixing documentary-like footage with scripted scenes as he had in his first feature, the filmmaker heavily features music and dance by throngs of street performers, a diegetically captured salve for the wounds of extreme poverty and social oppression — and an ideal camouflage of his critical agenda from the South African authorities, who were persuaded that...
- 1/26/2012
- MUBI
Clint Eastwood scores yet again with a rousing tale of the moment when Nelson Mandela harnessed the power of rugby to unite South Africa
Clint Eastwood has been acting in movies for 55 years and directing them for 40. Astonishingly, in an industry that favours youth and discourages originality, he's been doing his best and boldest work in his eighth decade. It seemed he'd reached a creative zenith when he returned to his roots with the classic western Unforgiven in 1992. But since the turn of the century, he's made 10 immensely varied films, including a remarkable defence of euthanasia, Million Dollar Baby, the superb diptych of Second World War films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, a documentary on piano blues and a deeply felt story of a man rethinking his values in late middle age, Gran Torino.
Not all of these films have been particularly subtle, but each has...
Clint Eastwood has been acting in movies for 55 years and directing them for 40. Astonishingly, in an industry that favours youth and discourages originality, he's been doing his best and boldest work in his eighth decade. It seemed he'd reached a creative zenith when he returned to his roots with the classic western Unforgiven in 1992. But since the turn of the century, he's made 10 immensely varied films, including a remarkable defence of euthanasia, Million Dollar Baby, the superb diptych of Second World War films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, a documentary on piano blues and a deeply felt story of a man rethinking his values in late middle age, Gran Torino.
Not all of these films have been particularly subtle, but each has...
- 2/7/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Philip French salutes a landmark movie from the dawn of apartheid in South Africa
This remarkable if somewhat solemn adaptation of Alan Paton's classic novel, published in 1948 on the eve of apartheid, is a milestone in political cinema and the presentation of black characters. Directed by Zoltan Korda (previously a specialist in British imperial movies) and co-scripted by an uncredited John Howard Lawson (blacklisted member of the "Hollywood 10"), it stars the great black American actor and activist Canada Lee as an Anglican priest in rural Natal and Charles Carson as a white farmer, brought together in Johannesburg through the entwined fates of their sons. Shot on South African locations by Robert Krasker (who'd just won an Oscar for The Third Man), it provides a vivid and moving portrait of a cruelly divided society of exploited, uprooted black people and troubled, guilty white people and has strong biblical undertones. In one of his earliest roles,...
This remarkable if somewhat solemn adaptation of Alan Paton's classic novel, published in 1948 on the eve of apartheid, is a milestone in political cinema and the presentation of black characters. Directed by Zoltan Korda (previously a specialist in British imperial movies) and co-scripted by an uncredited John Howard Lawson (blacklisted member of the "Hollywood 10"), it stars the great black American actor and activist Canada Lee as an Anglican priest in rural Natal and Charles Carson as a white farmer, brought together in Johannesburg through the entwined fates of their sons. Shot on South African locations by Robert Krasker (who'd just won an Oscar for The Third Man), it provides a vivid and moving portrait of a cruelly divided society of exploited, uprooted black people and troubled, guilty white people and has strong biblical undertones. In one of his earliest roles,...
- 2/7/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.