We watched the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name written by August Wilson around 1987. The film is well made. Lead actor and director Denzel Washington plays Troy, a garbage collector in the Pittsburgh neighborhood.
He is African American married to an African American woman (played amazingly by Viola Davis) whom he discovers after being released from a long incarceration of 15 years after being caught in a robbery gone bad.
The screenplay is taut and funny at the same time. While Troy loves his family dearly he is also shown to be vulnerable and tired. Tired of kowtowing to the white race, tired of making ends meet and generally tired of the hand he was dealt as a black person in America. He is seen making reference to Baseball being good at it himself at one time but not good enough to be recruited by a major league because of his color.
He is shown making the effort to put up a fence around his property throughout the movie which he finishes close to the end. That fence is a subtle metaphor for his state of mind. He distances himself from his children which he compartmentalizes as being born of different mothers. His wife, Rose on the other hand looks at the fence as a way to ensure they keep the bad from happening to them.
The dialog is strong and witty at the same time. The entire film is shot without much change in locale - as would a stage play yet keeps the viewer engrossed in the evolution of the story-line through the tragedies and the humility and the value of character.
He is African American married to an African American woman (played amazingly by Viola Davis) whom he discovers after being released from a long incarceration of 15 years after being caught in a robbery gone bad.
The screenplay is taut and funny at the same time. While Troy loves his family dearly he is also shown to be vulnerable and tired. Tired of kowtowing to the white race, tired of making ends meet and generally tired of the hand he was dealt as a black person in America. He is seen making reference to Baseball being good at it himself at one time but not good enough to be recruited by a major league because of his color.
He is shown making the effort to put up a fence around his property throughout the movie which he finishes close to the end. That fence is a subtle metaphor for his state of mind. He distances himself from his children which he compartmentalizes as being born of different mothers. His wife, Rose on the other hand looks at the fence as a way to ensure they keep the bad from happening to them.
The dialog is strong and witty at the same time. The entire film is shot without much change in locale - as would a stage play yet keeps the viewer engrossed in the evolution of the story-line through the tragedies and the humility and the value of character.
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