When I went to see this film with my friend Donald Mack as it was being hosted by this Socialist group that wished to manipulate us more into adopting their party line than anything else, I'll never forgot his comment about one third of the way through this film. He looked at me and said, "- this ain't no movie, this is real!" Naturally, his assessment of this film was as spot on as one of those stiff jabs he would use to bloody my nose with when we would spar around with those Karate gloves I got from Warrior Arts Supplies down on Woodward in Highland Park. This wasn't your usual Blaxsploitation fare meant to make money off the projection of stereotypes about the Black Race. There was something about the black and white documentary in your face style of independent film-making that made it seem like a home movie about our friends and family in their most unguarded moments.
The characters were like people we both knew from our own immediate experience. Whether it was Duff or Josie or Duff father's Will or Lee or Jocko, there was an undeniable reality to these characters, albeit they came across a little more subdued and restrained than the people on my block. But most of the people we knew were newly urbanized and assimilating the rhythms and tensions of a dynamic city life. These people were from Down South and known to be more easy going and relaxed, perhaps even more level headed and sober in their relations with each other and the limitations of the cultural atmosphere in which they dwelt.
Will Smith might grouse about being snubbed by the Academy for an Oscar winning performance, but when Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln don't win Best Actor and Best Actress for their performances, you know the cultural bias fix is in and alive and well. The cast is all first rate here from Yaphet Kotto to Gloria Foster to Will Anderson and their portrayals are a clinic and a kind of primer on the attributes of natural acting. There seems to be struck not a false note anywhere in this story, and when it come to its challenging conclusion it seems over far too soon. There is an even and gradual flow to the narrative that absorbs more and more of your attention as it moves forward in time.
The main quality of this film resounds with dignity. It is not the stiff dignity of people eager to protest or defy, but the simple matter-of-fact dignity of people dedicated to live and to prosper so as to enjoy the fruits of that dignity and all the other values they hold dear. There is a poetry to the interactions between the characters and a sense of something close to cinema verite' if not exactly the thing itself. When Hemingway spoke of grace under pressure he was speaking of what emerges between Duff and Josie approaching the end of their transformative journey in this film.
The characters were like people we both knew from our own immediate experience. Whether it was Duff or Josie or Duff father's Will or Lee or Jocko, there was an undeniable reality to these characters, albeit they came across a little more subdued and restrained than the people on my block. But most of the people we knew were newly urbanized and assimilating the rhythms and tensions of a dynamic city life. These people were from Down South and known to be more easy going and relaxed, perhaps even more level headed and sober in their relations with each other and the limitations of the cultural atmosphere in which they dwelt.
Will Smith might grouse about being snubbed by the Academy for an Oscar winning performance, but when Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln don't win Best Actor and Best Actress for their performances, you know the cultural bias fix is in and alive and well. The cast is all first rate here from Yaphet Kotto to Gloria Foster to Will Anderson and their portrayals are a clinic and a kind of primer on the attributes of natural acting. There seems to be struck not a false note anywhere in this story, and when it come to its challenging conclusion it seems over far too soon. There is an even and gradual flow to the narrative that absorbs more and more of your attention as it moves forward in time.
The main quality of this film resounds with dignity. It is not the stiff dignity of people eager to protest or defy, but the simple matter-of-fact dignity of people dedicated to live and to prosper so as to enjoy the fruits of that dignity and all the other values they hold dear. There is a poetry to the interactions between the characters and a sense of something close to cinema verite' if not exactly the thing itself. When Hemingway spoke of grace under pressure he was speaking of what emerges between Duff and Josie approaching the end of their transformative journey in this film.