Fences

Fences

His 1987 Pulitzer winner Fences is Washington’s current passion project, a film that he directs, stars in and produces. It has received four Academy Award nominations for best picture, best actor, best actress, and best adapted screenplay, so Washington has done something good with this movie. It has also been described as “a passionate, wordy and grandiloquently staged yet superbly performed drama,” and the cover looks suitable with the distinct lighting patterns. It is based on a play written by August Wilson in 1983, and the screenplay was penned by him before his demise in 2005.

(Nominated posthumously for an Oscar). And one must be able to comprehend how uninviting those lines must have appeared, large thick blocks of text which would be petrifying for performers during rehearsals. I understand. It is impossible not to admire the spirituality of the interpretation. However, in recent times, one grows bored of being preached and feels feeble about the matter like being forced to finish all the vegetables before dessert.

Washington plays the role of Troy Maxson, a garbage collector in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. The story progresses largely within his backyard and kitchen where macabre domestic scenes of the play will unfold. Troy is a former baseball player who played in the professional “Negro leagues” at a high level, but he was unable to go any further, a heat that he blames on racial discrimination.

He alleges that his lost status offered him nothing, “not even a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of”. It is more in the case of mourning rather than resentment two aspects of his character that he triumphs over or even represses through a deceptively jovial good nature and love for alcohol that is reminiscent of Falstaff. With a characteristic Washingtonian walk, he shakes his body forward with a sharp thrust of his hips and pelvis as if he is initiating a battle.

Viola Davis captivates the audience with her poise as Troy’s wife, Rose, for whom he spends most of the time showering with great affection. Troy’s eldest son, Lyons, played by Russell Hornsby, is a good-for-nothing son who shows up for his father’s paycheck asking for a loan but is said to be a good Jazz musician.

Another character, Jovan Adepo plays the intelligent youngest son, Cory, who gets his father’s anger by dreaming of a college football scholarship. Work-study and practice leave no time for doing household chores or working after classes. Another character is Bono played by Stephen Henderson who is Troy’s friend and a drinking partner who provides the support while Troy airily boasts about his grand ideas.

Washington, however, illustrates that Troy carries guilt and shame. He owns a house purchased using the disability check given to his learned-impaired brother, Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), by the army. Gabe was left in a state of second childhood due to brain injuries sustained during World War II, and the character intermittently manifests to bring instant emotional appeal to the scenes while sometimes overshadowing tense dialogues out of sheer innocence.

Troy himself is prone to fears of death, the grocery lady with whom he has an extramarital affair, and the fact that his wrongful children might do to him what he did to his father. He counts it as a blessing that Cory can help him with fixing a fence that he seems to have mended mentally far too many times. He is fixated on the idea that some fences are meant to be crossed while others are not. As someone who ruled baseball, he used to swing for the most distant of stars. Now those boundaries of fame are nothing more than an illusion.

All of the actors are strong performers and add to the richness that Fences possesses in terms of both heart and intellect. But then again, and pardon the crude phrasing or irreverence, I cannot help but thinking what would it be like if one were to make an actual film out of August Wilson’s play rather than this thoroughly reverent and respectful captured live performance.

What if the drama included new elements, for example at Troy’s place of work, schools attended by Cory, or clubs owned by Lyons and/or the life of Rose herself and included scenes of Troy’s other woman, whose presence is sadly overblown, yes flashy but hardly present? Because it is perfectly fair to appreciate the technique and the set/props and the poetry in the speeches and love them, but maybe the size of them is something excessive.

A few of the scenes that are left out and the staginess are executed very well and are effective. The events happening off stage after Troy’s last scene and before Rose confronts Cory tell a story of grief in a distanced way. A similar gap in time is felt when Lyons the young jazz musician is full of hope about his father coming to support him, and later disappointments that seem to run in the family.

Unquestionably, there is a certain sophistication of enjoyment in seeing actors as talented as Davis and Washington share screen time: they are in duet, in a way, regardless of the fact that they do not sing; it’s a nonmusical opera (or a secular revivalist meeting) and they have an eloquent way of performing every action. Denzel Washington is a class act, and he has put in a lot of effort and has sustained class.

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