Searing, Stunning, Unforgettable "Fences"

Fences*
directed by Denzel Washington
starring Denzel Washington, Viola Davis

At the close of Denzel Washington’s powerful and brilliant film adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences, my sister and I sat stunned in our reclining theater seats, letting the weight of it wash over us.

You must see it.

Fences is a masterful piece of theater, a portrait of an African American family in the 1950s, at the center of which is Troy Maxson, a force of nature, a fabulist and charmer as played by actor and director Denzel Washington, whose smooth veneer masks a man struggling with pain, bitterness, limited education, intractable opinions, questionable choices, and fraught relationships with his wife and sons. There is no other word for Denzel’s performance other than … Astounding.

You must see it.

The film finds Troy working the back of a garbage truck and fighting for his right to become the first Negro truck driver in Pittsburgh – a role he ultimately wins despite being unable to read and lacking a driver’s license. Once a star ball player in the Negro Leagues, Troy’s playing days were well before major league baseball was ready to integrate, and Troy now has nothing but contempt for groundbreaker Jackie Robinson or for his teenage son’s opportunity to earn a college scholarship by playing football. He swills gin with his friend Bono and talks shit with the air of an authority, but he must constantly be reminded that times are changing around him.

You must see it.

So often stage plays that reach the big screen are “opened up,” so that the locations and other characters become more fully realized than they were on the page; thus the emphasis and impact of the play can be altered or shifted in ways the playwright didn’t originally envision or intend. Denzel as director is wise enough not to open up the play too much. He gives us a view of a working class black Pittsburgh neighborhood, but keeps true to the play’s key scenes firmly set in the Maxsons’ backyard and kitchen. The smartest move of all is that he lets the camera stay close and still upon its incredibly capable actors, whose performances are sterling. Mykelti Williamson never drifts into excess as Gabriel, the brain damaged WWI veteran and brother of Troy; the actors portraying his sons, particularly Russell Hornsby as Lyons, each have moments that show us the character’s entire lives of struggle and defeat in just a few scenes. But none are more affecting than acting powerhouse Viola Davis as Rose, a loyal wife who is shattered by her husband’s self-serving choices, or by Denzel himself as Troy.

You must see it.

The film is full of wonderfully melodic and metaphoric language and visual symbolism. We have Gabriel and his horn, the Fool who speaks Truth. We have Rose, a symbol of beauty and grace, to whom Grabriel -- not Troy -- brings a single bloom. There are personal sacrifices and images of crosses. There is the continual building of the titular fence, which Troy successfully erects between himself and others. Troy speaks of wrestling Death in an early scene; in another, he tells a story of being beaten by his father with the reins of a mule. Denzel’s delivery of this monologue is nothing short of miraculous, as he is seen envisioning the moment with a sense of reminiscent humor that we know was entirely absent from the event itself but that allows us to see its horror clearly as though we were there ourselves. Viola Davis’s portrayal of Rose, the woman who seems to be the quiet strength of the film, the eye to Troy’s hurricane, is compelling. In what has to be the climax of Fences, the “I have to tell you something” moment, Viola’s realness will tear at your soul.

I don’t know how to fully express the impact of Fences. By giving actors room to infuse ferocious life into their roles, and creating very simple sets, the import of all that is said and all that is not said falls down on us like a heavy blanket. We feel these people, we know them, we are astounded by them. Our hearts break for them.

You must see it.

It is the best drama I have seen in a long while.

_______________________________________________________
"Fences" is part of the late African American playwright August Wilson's cycle of ten plays about the same Pittsburgh neighborhood. The play won both a Pulitzer and the Tony Award as Best Play in 1987. Other plays in the cycle include "The Piano Lesson," "King Hedley II," "The Gem of The Ocean," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and "Radio Golf."

Photo credit: David Lee - © MMXVI Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Bless Its Heart: A Few Thoughts On 'La La Land'

La La Land (2016)
directed by Damien Chazelle
starring Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling
original music by Justin Hurwitz

Let's face the music and dance.

1. I was born and raised and spent years working in New York. Friends and family couldn’t envision this Big Apple, Bronx-bred chick out on The Coast with the Holly Would-ers when I made the move in 1994. “So you’re moving out to La La Land, huh?” La La Land was where the loopy, thirsty and deluded went, where wacky trends in health and beauty were taken seriously, where people sold their souls to make it in the entertainment business, whether they had the skills or not. La La Land was where I was certainly going to lose whatever good sense I may have had.

2. But who says that good sense and dreams are polar opposites? I was born and bred in a city that reveres its musical theater traditions. Where making it big on a stage or a club was nearly the only legitimate path to widespread success for many an African American performer through the 19th and 20th centuries. Where I was fed a steady diet of musical fantasies.

3. Some of us need La La Land. Some of us need our dreams in order to move forward. And some of us live in a La La Land of our own design, whether we have a California address or not. Some of us don’t know when to let go of the “La La.”


4. I love classic movie musicals. I’m talking Cabin In The Sky, An American In Paris, Carousel, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, Mary Poppins, Funny Face, 42nd Street, Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, Gigi, Hello Dolly!, and the like -- big singing and dancing spectacles with old school Hollywood stars like Howard Keel, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell, Leslie Caron, Ethel Waters, Danny Kaye, Lena Horne, Ann Miller, the Nicholas Brothers, Frank Sinatra, and many others. These performers could sing as well as dance, and they worked with some of the most innovative and demanding of choreographers. To me, That's Entertainment.

La La Land, the movie ...

La La Land is a new age "musical" that utilizes the tropes of those classic Hollywood productions to tell its story, with varying degrees of success.

We have characters – Gosling’s jazz-loving piano player Sebastian and Stone’s budding actress and erstwhile barista Mia – pass through the meet-cute stage, and progress to tandem song and dance to reveal their growing attraction. Their romantic commitment lifts them from the ground into a magical dance among the stars, to a beautiful envisioning of a what-could-have-been-love montage. Along the way, viewers are treated to a few travelogue moments of classic Los Angeles (though not enough for my taste); The Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, the Griffith Observatory, downtown LA, Santa Monica, and the Hollywood Hills.

However, to pull off a truly great musical, you need two leads in whose performance talents you’re already invested. Stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are highly appealing and capable actors. Gosling has earned his chops through such films as Drive, The Place Beyond The Pines, Blue Valentine, and Lars And The Real Girl, among other films. After a few smart-girl roles Stone impressed me most with her range as the bratty daughter in Birdman. However (and despite Goslings Mouseketeer background) these two have minimal song-and-dance credentials. And though they give it the Old College Try, La La Land left me underwhelmed by the musical's musical numbers.

Despite a wonderful musical score and sprightly songs (I am going to get my hands on the soundtrack posthaste because I love "City of Stars"), La La Land becomes an average musical because of the average talents of Gosling and Stone. While some viewers may feel that the charm of the film springs from their very average-ness, I found myself consistently bored and annoyed that such fantastic tunes and dance setpiece opportunities were squandered on the scratchy, whispery, karaoke vocals and Dance 101 high school hoofing of the leads. This pair would have been voted off of Dancing With The Stars in the early rounds. The film’s numbers don’t even approach the level of those teen Disney projects that were so popular a decade ago, High School Musical and the like.

But here’s the catch -- the thing has heart. Though it’s not a great musical, La La Land still manages to reel you in with its storytelling. An effective allegory about the struggle to set up a career in Hollywood, the trade-offs that one makes to stay afloat, and the effort to maintain a successful relationship, La La Land embodies a classic Hollywood story, one that endures because the struggle never gets easier. It’s a new age A Star Is Born, except no one succumbs to drink. It’s a wistful, honest, and ultimately heartrending story. Dreams come with a price tag, and sacrifices are part of the journey. And sometimes a great love is not forever.

Here is where the acting talents of Gosling and particularly Stone are most effective in conveying the emotional weight of what is mostly a weightless story. Extra credits given to Gosling, who actually appears to playing those keyboard riffs, even as he loses credits for white-splaining jazz to his beloved in the early part of their romance. And in her first scene auditioning for an acting role, Stone totally drew me in with her acting chops.

Furthermore, La La Land is beautiful to look at. It is sun-drenched and bright, and even in darkened settings such as the club where Gosling’s character Sebastian tickles the ivories, the sets and lighting are dreamlike, evocative, enthralling. The film is shot in CinemaScope, so its wide screen captures a broad swath of details. From the opening scenes, where the camera swoops between parked cars to capture the carefully choreographed singing, dancing, flipping, and skateboarding of motorists leaving their vehicles on a traffic-locked freeway overpass and then whirls through the rooms of Mia’s apartment to capture her roommates as they ready for a Hollywood party – we know that the film is an extraordinary feat of movie-making.

The movie seems destined to be translated into a Broadway musical in the coming years, and perhaps then the mediocre singing and dancing will be improved tenfold. There are so many screen-to-stage productions these days that it seems entirely likely.

As a classic movie musical,La La Land is a flop by my standards. There has been an ongoing trend of the last few years of having non-singing actors sing on screen, but I'm not with it -- particularly as there are so many musically talented performers available.

But as a film fantasy inspired by old Hollywood about new Hollywood, La La Land will touch you.