Nothing But a Man

Director Michael Roemer

NOTHING BUT A MAN        A+                

USA  (95 mi) 1964  d:  Michael Roemer

One way for local whites to take the strut out of a black man's step was to put him in prison...Southerners who had just lost a war managed to convince courts to put hundreds of black men in prison, including black soldiers.          

—from the book Ain’t Nothing But a Man, by Scott Reynolds Nelson

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people...then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
—Martin Luther King Jr. from April 16, 1963, Letter from Birmingham Jail full text

I ain’t fit to live with no more. It’s just like a lynching. They don’t use a knife, but they got other ways.    —Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon)          

One of the better films that reveals what it means and how it feels to be black, reportedly Malcolm X’s favorite film, this is arguably the best black film ever made in America, set in Alabama’s Deep South in the early 60’s, though interestingly enough it was actually made by a white guy, Michael Roemer, born in Berlin, Germany, who fled the Holocaust as an 11-year old child on the Kindertransports, coming after his mother’s family shoe store was destroyed during Kristallnacht.  In the early 30’s Nazis organized boycotts of Jewish businesses in Germany, publically burned Jewish and non-German books in Berlin, established quotas for non-Aryans in schools, and excluded Jews from public parks and swimming pools, with the director remembering having to sit on separate yellow benches when Jews were denied entrance into movies theaters, circumstances eerily similar to blacks in the Jim Crow South, with white supremacy resembling Nazi racialization, especially in its impact on families.  Made on a $300,000 budget during the dawn of the Civil Rights era, the production coincided with the civil rights insurgency and benefited from input from activists, shot during the tumultuous summer of 1963 simultaneous to the Medgar Evers’ assassination, George Wallace preaching “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” while standing in the doorway blocking the entrance of two black students at the University of Alabama, the March on Washington, the site of Martin Luther King’s infamous “I Had A Dream” speech, and they were still filming the day four young girls were killed by bombs at the Sixteenth Street Church in Birmingham.  Both Roemer and his co-writer and cinematographer Robert M. Young were Jewish, educated at Harvard University, and wrote the script after traveling through the South together, with Roemer directing the black-and-white film using a neorealist style, giving it a near documentary look.  What distinguishes the film is the remarkable ease in telling the story without a hint of condescension or manipulation, no preaching, no moral crusading, no underlying political message, and never resorting to caricature or exaggeration for added emphasis.  Instead it just tells it like it is.  Never once do we hear music swelling to emphasize a poignant moment and the end credits play without a sound.  There’s not a false step anywhere in this landmark picture, beautifully directed with an assured, understated style that reeks of authenticity and serves as a time capsule that holds up unusually well even after 50 years.  With no sympathetic white figures in the film, it was misunderstood and undervalued by white critics, largely ignored at the box office, with viewers finding it underwhelming, but the film was years ahead of its time, with Ebony magazine listing the film among their Top Ten Black Films of All Time in a 1995 poll, revealing essential truths about being black that other films ignored, effortlessly conveying a poetic depiction of everyday black realities, a predecessor to small black independent films like Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1979) and Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), which received greater acclaim, largely due to their accessibility, part of an academically studied movement, the LA Rebellion, catalog (pdf), while this harder-to-find film has continually been relegated to the obscure.  Ivan Dixon as Duff Anderson gives one of the great unheralded performances in American film, smart, proud, a sexy swagger to his step, extremely dignified, never overreaching, usually calm and quiet, a strong, silent type, but his life is a neverending series of exasperating events, continually referred to as “boy” and “trouble” while being goaded into unwelcome confrontations from racist taunts where he refuses to buckle under the patronizing humiliation of ignorant whites who expect him to “act the nigger” and play the subservient game of bowing down to white authority, as that’s what’s always been expected in this neck of the woods. 

It ain’t pretty, but it’s real, where the film does an excellent job laying a foundation of his well respected and confident demeanor working and joking among fellow black men as a nomadic railroad worker, making good money, a loner out on his own not beholden to anybody.  But when he falls for a preacher’s daughter at a church social outside Birmingham, Alabama, Josie (jazz singer Abbey Lincoln), a proud and irresistibly beautiful woman, their romance is accompanied by a backdrop of contemporary Motown songs playing on a jukebox or the radio, like Martha and the Vandella’s “Heat Wave” Martha & the Vandellas - (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave YouTube (2:43) or Little Stevie Wonder - Fingertips. (Part 2) - YouTube (3:13), adding an overall sense of upbeat optimism, like seeing the couple develop an interest in one another dancing on a crowded dance floor, which predates the use of culturally relevant rock music in movies like Easy Rider (1969) or early Scorsese movies like Mean Streets (1973).  When they decide to get married, there’s little fanfare, as her father (Stanley Greene) is openly suspicious of a man who never went to college and doesn’t go to church, believing that his daughter deserves better.  But they’re happy in an easy going kind of way, despite the objections of her father, developing a low key relationship not usually shown in motion pictures, with a distinct class difference, as she grew up in a middle class background and teaches elementary school, having gone to college.  But their marriage suffers as he experiences a series of job setbacks where he’s forced to endure local insults, always being labeled a troublemaker for refusing to shuffle and jive for the white man, losing one job after another which puts them in desperate straits financially.  Usually he’d just hit the road, but now he’s part of a marriage.  Each time he runs off, he comes face to face with his seldom seen father (Julius Harris) who abandoned him at a young age, a bitter, broken down alcoholic who has nothing but rage against the world around him, unfortunately maimed by an industrial accident, no longer able to work, who would probably be dead were it not for the care of the strong woman beside him, Lee (Gloria Foster), continually railing against his own son as well, telling him to “get lost.”  He also visits a little 4-year old boy born out of wedlock, whose mother has taken off and left the child behind with another woman, viewing his father with that sad, fearful look of distrust.  Yet when he’s angry, he denies that’s even his child, but he nonetheless sends money regularly.  Interesting that Josie’s father gives Duff a word of advice, suggesting he “act the part,” calling it a form of psychology to “make ‘em think you’re going along and get what you want.”  Duff has a few words of his own for the preacher, “You’ve been stooping so long, Reverend, you don't know how to stand straight.  You’re just half a man.”  Like De Niro in a Scorsese film, Duff’s refusal to compromise his pride is what distinguishes his character, and his strong sense of self-respect is precisely what Josie finds so remarkably attractive about him, though he’s tested to the limits, behaving atrociously at times when his back is against the wall, undermined by generations of black passive indifference to the demeaning arrogance of white supremacy that has ruled since slavery days, exploiting black work aspirations and destroying family lives, refusing any suggestions of blacks aligning together, as that means losing their livelihood, leaving him singled out and isolated, placed on a do not hire blacklist around town for similar jobs, Nothing But a Man YouTube (2:32). 

Despite the bleak and unforgiving landscape for blacks in the Jim Crow South, described in great detail by American novelists William Faulkner and Richard Wright, or adapted movie novels like To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), blacks remained subject to white-controlled work places in town, along with a constant reminder that a lynching occurred in town eight years ago, perhaps a reference to the horrific 1955 murder of Emmett Till in nearby Mississippi, yet what’s ultimately so revealing is the discovery that Duff is living in a world that belongs to others, who set the rules and conditions, and define the allowable parameters of his existence.  This has never been so plainly and so sensitively revealed, as it defines black existence in America then and now, continually living under the thumb of white majority rule.  The film doesn’t so much tell a story as let one unravel before our eyes, conveyed with understatement, accenting naturalism and authenticity, though mostly shot on location in New Jersey, yet the images of low-down bars, streets and houses overrun by children, and rows of dilapidated tenements represent Birmingham’s poor black district, while the opening montage of a railroad section gang laying tracks was filmed during their earlier travels through the South.  Special recognition must be paid for the attention to black faces in the many close-ups, producing a depth and intimacy of images rarely seen before in filming black characters, where much of the underlying power of the film comes from the brilliant performances that allow viewers to immerse themselves in the predominately black cultural themes, like juke joints and church (featuring a brilliant gospel solo by Dorothy Hall), men getting blacklisted for standing up for themselves, where the only work available for blacks is back-breakingly hard labor that physically wears people out, where if they get injured or old, they’re of no use to anyone anymore, including themselves.  Without a job, forced to wallow in their worthlessness and self-loathing, their lives consist of sitting on their front stoops doing nothing, wasted in the mind-numbing void of alcohol abuse, where the only places blacks are allowed to live are dilapidated neighborhoods, where neglected children are the product of so many uncaring or absent fathers that a sense of worthlessness becomes synonymous with their deplorable living conditions, producing a righteous anger that eventually comes to define them.  This cycle of generational dysfunction hits Duff in the face like a ton of bricks, and he’s determined not to let it happen to him, where he chooses to be different, to be a responsible man, refusing to defer to white men, even at the cost of a job.  The film reflects the obstacles he faces, the anger, the indignation, the wretched helplessness he feels as he attempts to wade through the minefield of daily disasters waiting for him.  But never does he feel sorry for himself, or give up hope, but he does feel the sting of rebuke.  Their marriage is no picnic either and there are some rocky moments, but perhaps most significantly, this film offers no easy solutions.  Yet the profound depth of character is strikingly lucid, casting a harsh light on those blacks who do abandon their families, only making things that much more difficult for those they leave behind, perhaps removing the only hope they have, which weakens the already fragile state of broken black families and community.  Offering a dissertation on black masculinity, the film impressively reveals an inherent capacity for love while enduring endless racial threats, while also highlighting the significance and stability of female support, both emotionally and financially, becoming a brilliant depiction of a troubled life mirroring the upheaval of social change during the Civil Rights era, with details specific to the story’s time and place, which remain universally impactful, with the film being selected to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1993.          

A Patch of Blue

A PATCH OF BLUE             B             
USA  (105 mi)  1965  ‘Scope  d:  Guy Green

Selina:  “I know everything I need to know about you. I love you.  I know you’re good, and kind.  I know you’re colored and I…”

Gordon:  “What’s that?”

Selina:  “…And I think you’re beautiful!”

Gordon:  “Beautiful?  Most people would say the opposite.”

Selina:  “Well that’s because they don’t know you.”

A variation on the Cinderella fairy tale, told Hollywood style in a wrenching racial melodrama about an 18-year old blind girl, Elizabeth Hartman as Selina D’Arcy, who’s been kept out of school and forced to do menial chores at home all day doing the cooking and cleaning for her tyrannical mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters), before meeting a stranger in Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), who happens to be black, though she doesn’t learn this until late into the picture.  Gordon befriends her and takes an interest in what’s happening in her life, which leads to a cataclysmic upheaval in her life once her mother finds out.  Literally locked inside her apartment with few opportunities to ever go outside, Selina leads a stifling existence, where her mother’s mental and physical abuse has no bounds, yet she won an Academy  Award for a playing a woman so monstrous that she belongs in the discussion for worst mothers ever depicted onscreen, (which may be reserved for Franziska Weisz in her vile portrayal in Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) in 2014), where her grotesque sadism and sheer lack of humanity overshadows any and all racist shortcomings.  As portrayed in Steve McQueen’s more recent 12 Years a Slave (2013) or Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), white slave owners are depicted as not just evil, but are exaggerated into such sadistic caricatures that it’s reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004).  While this is an extremely popular characterization in Hollywood movies, it’s highly questionable whether this over-exaggeration may do more harm than good, resorting to a sado-masochistic indulgence to such an extreme degree that ordinary racists are paragons of virtue by comparison, so it really misses the point.  Coming a year after the legislative passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s hard to believe someone who so completely embodies racial bigotry would win an Academy Award for her performance, even though this film lays it on a bit thick in drawing the moral lines between good and evil, where Rose-Ann literally has no redeeming qualities whatsoever as a human being.  Winters herself revealed in interviews afterwards that it was difficult being this abhorrent, “I’ve always found something to like in the characters I’ve played, but not this time.  I really hate this woman.”  Adapted from the 1961 novel Be Ready with Bells and Drums by Australian writer Elizabeth Kata, the film alters the tone of the novel where the young girl shares her mother’s prejudices, going into a state of shock once she learns the truth about her newly discovered friend, handing him over to a mob of racist vigilantes.  That doesn’t happen here where the subject of race is cleverly downplayed, where instead it’s a film about a sheltered and abused blind girl’s personal liberation and freedom, optimistically breaking the shackles of the past and walking into a new era. 

Just two years earlier Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for his performance in LILIES OF THE FIELD (1963), which is interesting considering one of the central scenes of the film is the spirited rendition of the gospel song “Amen” Lilies of the Field - Amen - YouTube (3:06), where the musical arrangement and Poitier’s voice were supplied by Jester Hairston, as Poitier was notoriously tone deaf.  Certainly one of the most exceptional performances of his career went unrecognized by the Academy in A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961), featuring an all-star black cast, where his youthful anger couldn’t have more perfectly fit the raging sentiment of the times.  Poitier went on to play the parts of noble and dignified black men not only in this film, but also TO SIR WITH LOVE (1967), IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967), GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), and FOR LOVE OF IVY (1968), where as much as any other celebrity, white America came of age in the 1960’s identifying with the decency of Poitier as a black man, making him a safe choice with movie audiences that embraced him, helping raise awareness for more equal treatment of all races.  While this is an extremely conventional film, what’s interesting is how it balances the ordinary moments of Selina and Gordon spending time together and then how traumatizing it feels with her own mother, who treats her with little more than outright contempt.  There’s an interesting use of flashback and dream sequences, which were much more commonly used internationally in the 60’s than they are today, allowing directors greater freedom in exploring the psychological state of mind of the characters, where in this film it also provides a window into Selina’s brutal past, where her childhood was anything but innocent.  Gordon immediately picks up on this, where this perfectly normal girl, except that she’s blind, has endured and somehow prevailed under the most tragic circumstances.  In many ways it resembles the fragility of The Glass Menagerie, where Selena has been kept inside a cloistered existence all her life, completely unaware of the world outside that represents her yearning for freedom.  We eventually learn what a house of horrors she did come from, as her blindness was actually caused by her mother (discovered in bed with another man) who in a state of rage threw a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at her father when she was only five, where he ducked out of the way but it landed on her face, causing burned scars around her eyes and immediate blindness.  The title of the film references one of her earliest memories, where all she remembers is seeing a patch of blue sky out the window. 

The other surprisingly good aspect of the film is the inventive musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, and while it overemphasizes moments of sentimentality with heartwarming string music, very much a period of its time, it also takes a novel approach for more ordinary moments, creating a slightly jazz-tinged scenario with an interesting use of percussion, where the off-kilter music actually helps the audience see the scene in a uniquely different way.  The weight of the world seems to rest on Selina’s shoulders, having to endure a daily barrage of insults from her mother, who picks on her constantly, literally blaming Selina for all the troubles in her life, particularly her impoverished economic status, suggesting her own life would be so much better without the added burden.  To complicate the woes, Rose-Ann’s drunken father lives there as well, known as Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), and while he’s kinder to Selina than her berating mother who actually slaps her around, he’s pretty much useless, as he never really interferes.  He is willing to drop her off in the park one day, much to Selina’s delight, as the idea of spending an entire day outdoors is like a dream to her, having no problem whatsoever with having to wait until early evening for him to pick her up on his way home after work.  While sitting under a giant tree, she happens to meet Gordon as he lives nearby, where they quickly become good friends.  Astounded that she’s never had any education, and has been deprived of all the things that make life interesting, he helps her manage her away across a busy street intersection and introduces her to the food from a nearby cafeteria, while also teaching her how to use a public telephone and rest room.  Anchored to the same spot all day, she’s not hard to find, where he has a hunch she might still be out there during a heavy downpour of rain, helping her to the nearest protective cover.  In their meetings, she expresses the awe of discovering new things, like pineapple juice or different flavors of ice cream, while also confessing some of the most disturbing incidents that have happened under her mother’s care, which in her eyes is an ordinary occurrence.  There is an unworldly moment that certainly takes us by surprise when Gordon sings to her (in French no less!!) the words to a French children’s song that plays on a music box, A Patch of Blue: "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère." (49 seconds), but other than that, there’s nothing particularly dramatic about their scenes together, which is the beauty of the film, although the interracial eight-second kiss between them was cut for Southern audiences.  Well-acted and always intriguing, even Gordon’s brother Mark, Ivan Dixon, so superlative in Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man (1964) a year earlier, questions his budding friendship with a blind white girl, realizing it could potentially cause a scandal, which it does once Rose-Ann accidentally sees them together on the street, bringing the wrath of Hell down upon her, scolding her for associating with a “nigger.”  Untouched by the sordid reality surrounding her life, Selina is pure of heart, where the music box becomes her most prized possession, as it symbolizes her friendship and developing love for another human being, where it ends on an ambiguous note, as the doors to her future swing open, but the social services available for the blind, mentally ill or disabled in the mid 60’s were hardly a picnic, many discarded for simply being too much trouble for their families, as evidenced in the hackneyed recut version of an early John Cassavetes film A Child Is Waiting (1963), which actually takes place on the premises of a California State Hospital for the Handicapped.  Clearly, however, as evidenced by the idealism expressed in both films, the seeds are planted for a more humane society.  If the 60’s was anything, it was an era of optimism and hope for a better future, despite the lingering Vietnam War and existing racial and economic disparities.

Note

For her performance, Elizabeth Hartman, who was 22 years old at the time, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but suffered from lifelong depression, which worsened following her divorce in 1984, giving up acting and instead moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she worked at a museum while receiving treatment at an outpatient clinic.  On June 10, 1987, at the age of 43, Hartman committed suicide by jumping from the window of her fifth floor apartment.