Kids:
So much stuff to respond to, my keyboard is shaking. Of course, that could just be the horrifying turbulence on the plane. That and the fact that reading all of this e-mail via a GTE Airfone will cost me a down payment on a house. Rog–the reason I brought up The Green Mile had nothing to do with political correctness. The fact is, black men in the South in the 1930s had a lot to prove. As my father, who grew up in Mississippi, told me, it really was about working twice as fast to go half as far. If Green Mile had any bravery, it would have dealt with the fact that racial epithets were offhandedly tossed off by what were considered the best of men during that period. GreenMile’s fear of the real world is the real political correctness: Every white guy in the movie is a warm, decent sort who regrets any motion that’s vaguely menacing. Every racist in the movie is a caricature–even Gary Sinise, who compares blacks to dogs that’ll turn on you. If Hanks had been forced to deal with his own incipient racism, that would have made his “life sentence” seem fitting–he had to lose his mortality to gain second sight–and the movie would have a real wallop. But the fact is, no studio is gonna pony up Hanks’ $20 million to make audiences uncomfortable and remind us of attitudes that still drift throughout this country. (I have a cassette of censored cartoons from the era, and the racism in Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs alone is enough to explain all of the anger in hip-hop.) One of my concerns about moving to New York is the open racism that still lives in the city; the joke I used to make is the only reason black men date white women in Manhattan is so they can get a cab.
A few weeks ago, I discussed with David the strain of sacrificial black mystics that runs throughout King’s work, and put that stuff in my Star-Telegram review of the picture, then cut it for space reasons myself. I’m sorry I did. As much as I liked Shawshank Redemption, the p.c.-minded ignoring of Morgan Freeman’s race made the movie seem slightly insane to me. Poor Freeman–here’s a guy who knows what it’s like to suffer. Roughly a contemporary of Poitier, he–like a bunch of other black actors–had to watch as Poitier was treated like the only black man on the planet. He had to wait until most actors think about collecting a pension to watch his career start. It creates a core of tension in Freeman’s work. (This residual anger can be seen even in Bill Cosby’s early acting–he’s the only good thing in the otherwise atrocious Mother, Jugs & Speed and there’s a compelling undercurrent of rancor in his work in Hickey & Boggs–before he retired from the human race. The first Playboy I ever read, from 1970 I think, featured an interview with a very angry Cosby, who sided with the black revolutionaries with a thirst for payback. It was the first sense I got of a man who was as deeply compromised by success as any African-American.)
Sarah: You have to check out Praise. It’s a remarkable piece of work that hasn’t been picked by Miramax because there’s no way Gwyneth Paltrow could be shoehorned into it. The seedy romance between a slacker and an agressive young woman covered with psoriasis–it’s like her id is eating her up from the inside–doesn’t give anyone an easy out. Sacha Holder, the young woman in the lead, has presence to burn–she never tips her hand. It’s worth looking for. Otherwise, it has been Boys Night Out in the American Cinematheque. The stuff treating women seriously has come from other countries. And I hate saying that, because it makes me look like some middlebrow reflex Francophile or something. Which I ain’t.
