Denzel Washington Viola Davis Mykelti
Williamson
Russell Hornsby
Jovan Adepo
Stephen Henderson
This passionate tale about a black family’s
experience at home and with the outside world is heart wrenching, enlightening,
and funny. The film is the third
iteration of an August Wilson story, which was a multiple Tony Award-winning
play, first on Broadway in 1987 then revived in 2010, and now a film directed
by Denzel Washington. He has
played the role of the patriarch Troy in both plays and the film. Viola Davis played Troy’s wife in the
2010 play and again in the current film.
Troy is a very authoritarian father with a past
that would predict his adult personality—maternal abandonment and paternal
abuse. So Troy ran away from home
when he was 14, and got involved in stealing. Eventually, he ended up being tried and convicted for
murder, serving 15 years in the penitentiary. Soon after, he married and had a son, Lyons, but the
marriage didn’t last, and the boy was brought up by his mother. Lyons has a conflicted relationship
with his father now. Troy
belittles Lyons’ playing in a band and not having regular employment, but
grudgingly gives him money from time to time.
When Troy met Rose (Davis), he had gained
steady employment as a trash collector, and he attributes her with helping him
make something of his life. He
reveres her, and she is a good foil for him, standing up to him occasionally,
but mostly going along with whatever he wants. Their love for one another is apparent, but they have a son
Cory (Adepo), and Troy continues the father tradition in their family of
providing little reinforcement but much instruction and criticism.
Cory is in high school and doing well in
football, but his father wants him to work instead of playing sports and going
to practice. He even has a chance
for a football scholarship for college.
But here is where the negatives of authoritarianism and “the father’s
sins being visited upon the children” rear their ugly heads. Troy tells Cory that he needs to learn
a trade so he won’t have to be a trash collector. Cory is enraged (potently expressed by Adepo) by his
father’s forbidding him to play football, sensing that Troy doesn’t want him to
have what Troy missed out on.
These relationships between Troy and his
children illustrate the mistakes of an authoritarian, but it also shows up as a
drawback in Troy’s marriage. When
he makes a major transgression, Rose lets him have it when he tries to explain
how deprived he has been in sacrificing for his family. “You talk about how much you give, but
you take too!” And her remarks emphasize his
self-centeredness and his “bubble” in thinking he has been the only one wanting
more in his life.
Eventually, the sins of the father are visited not
only upon the sons but on the wife as well. Rose must rescue him once again, not that he doesn’t also
pay for his mistakes. He is now persona non grata at home, and he learns the
bitter lesson and outcome of failing to foster his relationships with his
children.
Fences
is impressive in its portrayal of an American family in the 1950s, their
challenges and issues, and part of their history that got them to this point in
time. It can’t quite overcome its
“Broadway play” look, which is distracting at times, although this isn’t a
major drawback. The performances
of Washington, Davis, Adepo and the screenplay (still imminently current) more
than compensate for any downsides.
A curious theme (to me) throughout this
play/film is the theme of death.
It comes up from time to time, the song “I had a Dog Blue” (which dies)
is sung, but Troy dismisses death out of hand. He denies the eventuality of his own death, although after
his own brush with it, the devil has become his adversary and we hear him
challenging it right up to the end.
Fences: A way to keep things out and to keep things in.
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