Foster Dickson's Blog, page 92

July’s Southern Movie of the Month

1958’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is, to put it simply, an incredibly good movie. Starring Paul Newman in one of his great cool-dude roles from the 1950s and ’60s, as well as the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie the Cat, the larger-than-life Burl Ives as Big Daddy, and Madeleine Sherwood as the grotesquely aggravating Mae, this film is the adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Tennessee Williams.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” takes place on Big Daddy’s birthday— and the day he comes home from the clinic where he believes he has been cleared of any terminal illness. His favorite son Brick is convalescing at home with a broken leg that he got trying to relive his glory days by jumping hurdles in a drunken stupor, and elder son Gooper’s has brought his irritating wife and passel of “no-neck monsters” to wish Big Daddy a happy-birthday and a welcome-home. However, Big Daddy is having none of it. He comes surly and domineering right off the airplane and takes a self-satisfied ride with Brick’s wife Maggie through “some of the finest bottom land this side of the Mississippi,” surveying his personal empire. Newly invigorated by the prospect of continued life, Big Daddy arrives home surrounded by his wealth and his progeny, but those around him know better.

Adding to the tension, Big Daddy’s misunderstanding of his condition is not the only sour note that the Pollitt family will deal with. Secretly aware of his father’s terminal illness, the ineffectual big brother Gooper is a Memphis lawyer who has come home to set his father’s affairs in order— basically, believing his role as dutiful son entitles him, Gooper has come to collect on his inheritance. Meanwhile, younger son Brick – the handsome, brooding (and drunken) former college football great – has lost his best friend Skipper to suicide and is estranged from his pleading wife, Maggie. We get glimpses of the secrets that churn in the space between them: was Skipper more than just a friend to Brick? Were Skipper and Maggie involved? If those additional sub-plots weren’t enough, we have the overly proud Big Mama whirling around, attempting to take charge, and the conniving Mae periodically and quite loudly alluding to surreptitious elements of the family dynamic.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is an easy story to do badly, yet this stellar cast pulls it off exquisitely. I’ve seen live-theater productions that failed miserably, mostly due to bad acting, and I’ve wondered when I saw them if I wasn’t spoiled by this film. The begging and pleading interrogative quality of the dialogue, which betrays the family’s secrets so subtly and so slowly, can frustrate audiences if done poorly, but the 1958 film adaptation drags us through the mud with these desperate people who all wonder the same thing: what will happen when Big Daddy is dead? As that integral question gets asked in its many forms, sons must wonder out loud whether they have their father’s approval, and wives must find out once and for all whether they have been good partners to their men.

The beauty of this film resides in its ability to raise fundamental issues of life and death, by using a prosperous Deep Southern family as its examples. Once he finds out that he is actually facing certain death, Big Daddy wants to know whether his work has meant something, whether the acquisition of money and property and social status were worth the effort, when his own father – “a hobo tramp” – died smiling, penniless and lying in the weeds beside a train track. Brick must grapple with the nature of friendship and marriage, and the perplexing points where they intersect, while learning to cope with the loss of his glory days and the breakdown of his body with age. Gooper has come home to reap the rewards of doing what he was told, of following orders, of living up to expectations, even while his younger brother’s prodigal path has yielded their father’s greater affection; the pathetic elder son wants what he perceives to be his, by right and by effort. And Big Mama, charging around, loudly proclaiming the vibrancy of her family and her home, must face being told by her husband that he can’t stand her, while Maggie struggles with them all, not for the money or for the land, but for the love of her husband, who is being torn apart by his past.

Like other infamous literary works that pull back the curtains on great Deep Southern families – from Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury to Margaret Walker’s Jubilee – the film adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” shows us what we all kind of knew anyway: as the Book of Ecclesiastes puts it in chapter 5,

10 Where there are great riches, there are also many to devour them. Of what use are they to the owner except as a feast for the eyes alone.

11 Sleep is sweet to the laborer, whether there is little or much to eat; but the abundance of the rich allows them no sleep.

12 This is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches hoarded by their owners to their own hurt.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” ranks not only among the greatest films ever made, but also among Newman’s string of incredibly good Southern movies from this time period, including “The Long, Hot Summer” in 1958, “Sweet Bird of Youth” in 1962, and “Cool Hand Luke” in 1967. Who could forget the smirking Big Daddy lecturing on “mendacity” or Brick correcting Mae about his triumph in the Cotton Bowl? Nobody.

Filed under: Film/Movies, Literature, Mississippi

A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week #74

Fannie Lou [Hamer Freedom High School] nurtures students’ abilities to connect, to question, to innovate, and to communicate. Students, the school believes, learn best by investigating real-world issues in ways that require collaboration, personal responsibility, care for others, and a tolerance for uncertainty. Students investigate personally meaningful problems and are assessed using a performance-based system that ensures rigorous student inquiry.

– from “A rare ‘defy the odds’ school where learning isn’t driven by high-stakes testing” by Valerie Strauss, published in the Washington Post online on June 11, 2015

Filed under: Education, Social Justice, Teaching, Writing and Editing

Old Movies

I love movies— old movies more than new ones, really. When I say I love movies, I have to clarify that I couldn’t care less if some Hollywood person is making yet another CGI action sequel or what the current big names actors are doing. I don’t care much about movie trivia or about remembering which film won an Oscar in which year. I just love movies, as stories, as art.

In recent years, The DVR and Netflix, Red Box, and Amazon Prime have really been a blessing for a movie buff. I can scroll through the guide on my cable box, sift through TCM or AMC or IFC or the Encore channels, record what sounds interesting, and watch one when I feel like it. I’ve got an especial fondness for movies from the 1960s and 1970s, and for any of the classics from latter half of the twentieth century. The old movie channels are great for finding those. Frankly, the streaming services aren’t very good for more obscure older movies, but they’re great for newer movies, which I would probably neglect if I could only see them in the theaters.

Though I’m not dogmatic or polemical about it, I have a little notebook where I jot down the names of movies I’ve watched and of books I’ve read, mainly in case I get one of those memory lapses and think, “What was the name of that movie . . .?” I can look in my notebook and usually figure it out. Well, I was thumbing through it the other day, and here are the movies I’ve watched in the last calendar year. Some I had seen before and was re-watching, some were new to me.

“Stars in My Crown” (1950)

“Wise Blood” (1979)

“Frances Ha” (2012)

“August: Osage County” (2012)

“Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone” (2010)

“My Dinner with Andre” (1981)

“This is the End” (2012)

“12 Years a Slave” (2013)

“Angels & Demons” (2009)

“Late Night Shopping” (British, 2001)

“Life Force” (British, 1985)

“Count Yorga, Vampire” (1970)

“Kid Blue” (1973)

“Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural” (1973)

“Rome Adventure” (1962)

“Raintree County” (1957)

“Ghosts of Mississippi” (1989)

“Philomena” (2012)

“The Prophecy” (1980)

“The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing” (1973)

“Saving Mr. Banks” (2013)

“Banished” (documentary, 2006)

“The Last Rebel” (1973)

“No Way Out” (1950)

“Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears” (1973)

“The Book Thief” (2013)

Fellini’s “Roma” (1973)

“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981)

“Marathon Man” (1976)

“The Contradictions of Fair Hope” (documentary, 2012)

“La Pariesienne” (French, 1958)

“Plucking the Daisy” (French, 1956)

Fellini’s “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965)

“Lincoln” (2013)

“Phantom Punch” (2008)

“Fed Up” (documentary, 2014)

“Suspiria” (1977)

“Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” (1971)

“Nights of Cabiria” (1957)

Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt” (1968)

“And So It Goes” (2014)

“If I Stay” (2014)

“The Skeleton Twins” (2013)

“Begin Again” (2013)

“Let The Right One In” (2008)

“Belle” (2013)

“Boyhood” (2014)

“Brother John” (1971)

“Kingdom of Heaven” (2005)

“Calvary” (2014)

“… tick . . . tick . . . tick” (1970)

“Intruder in the Dust” (1949)

“The Chase” (1966)

“Blue Jasmine” (2013)

“Black Mama, White Mama” (1973)

“Spider Baby” (1964)

“Sophie’s Choice” (1982)

“Cooley High” (1975)

“Food Chains” (documentary, 2014)

“Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter” (2011)

“Living on One Dollar” (documentary, 2014)

“Frankenstein” (1994)

“The Kids are All Right” (2010)

“The Howling, Part IV” (1989)

“The Hunger” (1983)

“Bucket of Blood” (1959)

“Alice in Wonderland” (2010)

“The Black Klansman” (1966)

“Klute” (1971)

Luis Buñuel’s “Tristana” (1970)

Luis Buñuel’s “Simon of the Desert” (1965)

“Wait Until Dark” (1967)

“Dog Day Afternoon” (1975)

“The Cat O’ Nine Tails” (1971)

“The Longest Week” (2014)

“Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed” (documentary, 2004)

“Welcome to Hard Times” (1967)

“Born Losers” (1967)

“Smokey and the Bandit” (1983)

“The English Teacher” (2013)

Fellini’s “Boccaccio ’70” (1962)

“Glory Stompers” (1968)

and . . .

“Blindness” (2008)

Filed under: Arts, Film/Movies

A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week #72

“To define a solitary as someone who is not married – to define solitude as the absence of coupling – is like defining silence as the absence of noise. Solitude and silence are positive gestures. This is why Buddhists say that we can learn what we need to know by sitting on a cushion. This is why I say that you can learn what you need to know from the silent, solitary discipline of writing, the discipline of art. This is why I say that solitaries possess the key to saving us from ourselves.”

– from “Going It Alone: The dignity and challenge of solitude” by Fenton Johnson, published in the April 2015 issue of Harper’s

Filed under: Arts, Teaching, Writing and Editing

The Work

I think I’m busier than I have ever been in my life. Even though it’s summer – supposedly a time of rest for teachers – I’ve committed myself to a range of worthwhile projects that are going to mean some real work over the next few months.

First and foremost, my book on the Whitehurst Case is due to the publisher in September, with the goal of a publishing date to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of Bernard Whitehurst, Jr.’s death on December 2. The manuscript is probably eighty to ninety per cent finished. The months of June and July will be full of writing, revising, interviewing, and researching, so that the loose ends can be tied up in August and the manuscript delivered on time. That quick turnaround time between delivery and publication is also going to mean that it’s got to be clean, thorough, accurate, well-documented and virtually ready to print. No pressure . . .

Most pressing in terms of time has been the reading and preparations for a the Alabama Humanities Foundation’s SUPER teacher professional-development program, “Slave Narratives: Their Impact on Fiction and Film.” (I’m attending this one as a participant, not as a lecturer.) I received eight books – three slave narratives and five novels – in May to have read by mid-June. Luckily, I had already read two of the novels in recent years, and had read one of the novels when I was in school (a long time ago)— but re-reading was necessary for those, too. While the books have all been enlightening and enjoyable, the volume of reading did take real effort.

Beyond those endeavors, I committed last year to write the curriculum guide for a educational traveling exhibit on Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. and the Freedom Riders, for the Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery. While this project will not be cumbersome, writing lesson plans is more detailed than a person might think. Turning objectives into activities, and correlating those activities to ACOS standards takes thought and care.

Finally, my presentation for the Community Legacy Project grant can’t take a back seat. I’ve already begun work on it, but it’s due date is furthest away. Putting together a thirty-minute teacher professional development unit on how I have worked as a community-based arts educator is going to require lots of editorial thought, as well as shooting video, doing voice-overs, and organizing the information in a way that says a lot in a little space. Again, no pressure . . .

So, new blog posts will be more scant throughout the summer— until these projects are completed. Meanwhile, the weekly quotes will keep coming, as will the “Southern movie of the month” for July and the thirteenth installment of “Some Other News from Around the Deep South.”

Filed under: Alabama, Civil Rights, Forthcoming, Literature, Reading, Social Justice, Teaching, Writing and Editing

A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week #71

“That was when he decided that to eat, walk and sleep anywhere was life as good as it got.”

– from the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison

Filed under: Reading, Teaching, Writing and Editing

Humble Progress at the School Garden

The eggplant is clearly doing better than that anything else.

It and the peppers are coming along nicely.

The cherry tomatoes are thriving, but some of the Roma tomatoes are rotting on the ends.

The squash plants are coming along, and are just now flowering.

The watermelon and cantaloupe vines are coming along, too.

The kale is . . . well, it’s not doing a whole lot.

The beans have sprouted, but not much more.

You could say the same for the basil.

And we have some little tiny hints that carrots are under there.

Filed under: Alabama, Education, Gardening, Teaching

A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week #70

The essentials are only two: taking a piece of writing seriously; and criticizing it with a view to helping it be what it wants to be. It cannot be done without some degree of abrasion. You don’t sharpen a knife on a cake of soap.

– from On the Teaching of Creative Writing by Wallace Stegner

Filed under: Education, Literature, Poetry, Teaching, Writing and Editing

Friday, June 12: the Montgomery Art Guild features artist Clark Walker

On Friday, June 12, the Montgomery Art Guild will open an exhibit that honors artist Clark Walker at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit will run through August 9. This is a well-deserved retrospective for Clark, whose first artistic recognitions came in the late 1950s when he was in high school.

I will be at the museum that evening not to only to honor my friend, but also to sign copies of my book about him, I Just Make People Up: Ramblings with Clark Walker (NewSouth Books, $45), during the opening reception, which will be from 5:30 until 7:30, with hors’ deuvres and a cash bar.

Filed under: Alabama, Arts, Author Appearances, Local Issues, Published Books, Reading, Writing and Editing

June’s Southern Movie of the Month

The stark 1966 film, “The Black Klansman,” brought viewers, who were in the midst of the Civil Rights era, an exceptionally cheesy and dubiously Deep Southern story of a light-skinned “negro” in Los Angeles who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan in his old hometown of Turnerville, Alabama after they kill his young daughter in the fire-bombing of a church. The opening credits explain that the screenplay is based on a song of the same name by Terry Harris. I came across “The Black Klansman” when I was searching Netflix for another film, and was immediately grabbed by its title. Though it’s probably too early to be considered “blaxploitation,” this mid-1960s low-budget film does have some of those characteristics.

As the film opens, we meet Jerry, a goatee-wearing LA hep cat, and his white girlfriend Andrea as they prep to go onstage, presumably in some sort of nightclub act. Jerry has just come back from snapping photos of local race riots for a white journalist who isn’t brave enough to get out in it, and Jerry’s skeptical, play-it-safe pal Lonnie plays the foil by making some swarthy comments about his lifestyle and his romance. The film ratchets up the tension when Jerry’s girlfriend wants to get married, and he starts to get angry, saying that neither their marriage nor their children would stand a chance in the real world. Then the call comes: his little daughter has been killed back in Alabama. Jerry freaks out and starts choking Andrea in a screaming rage about how he hates white people.

Back in the Turnerville of “The Black Klansman” racial tensions have elevated because a young black man has begun to push the envelope by seeking service in the white diner, even though he is warned not to stir up mess. The carload of Klansmen who firebomb the black church, killing Jerry’s daughter, are responding to this agitation, after also killing that lone young protestor.

Though Turnerville, Alabama is a real place, the Hollywood version of it in “The Black Klansman” doesn’t jive at all. The real Turnerville is north of Mobile near the Tensaw Delta, which is a low-lying, swampy place with lots of tall pines and Spanish moss. The film’s setting was a place of scrub brush, flat valleys, small mountains and sparse trees— basically, it was filmed in California, and only a person with no knowledge of Alabama would buy into that place being in south Alabama.

Jerry comes on the scene in Turnerville after having his hair straightened, his goatee shaved off, and his whole persona whitened. Once he gets there, He charges into the real estate offices of the Klan’s local head honcho – supposedly a big-time recruiter, but this guy can only muster one carload of bigots to firebomb a church – and demands to be taught how to start his own Klan chapter back in Los Angeles.

Now, let’s be frank here . . . in real life, back then, in small-town Alabama, charging into a big-time Klansman’s office— Jerry would have been dead by the time sun went down, no matter what color he was. But in the film, he walks out scot-free and even manages to catch the eye of the Klansman’s sultry blonde daughter at the front desk. Afterward, Jerry’s motel room gets the shakedown from a local dummy who can’t even hold his own in a one-on-one fight. Jerry handles him nicely, takes the fool’s gun from him, and sends him packing, only to be surprised immediately by the Klan leader who now believes in the young man’s sincerity. Jerry’s plan is working nicely.

Now, Jerry might have stood a chance to maintain his ruse but two unforeseen circumstances arise: the frustrated older brother of the slain wannabe-activist brings in some outside agitators from Harlem to organize the black community, and Lonnie and Andrea show up from LA to support their friend. While the skeptical, resistant response of the small-town Southern blacks to the two slick organizers is accurate enough, what happens with Lonnie and Andrea is way off base. When a black man and a white woman from out of town walk in the black nightclub, no one bats an eye! And then the bartender, who is also the town’s black motel owner, rents a room to the white woman as though it were a perfectly normal transaction! Keep in mind this is a town where a young black man is killed for ordering coffee at the white café. You just can’t expect a team of low-budget LA filmmakers in the mid-1960s to understand anything of Deep Southern nuance . . . .

Skipping ahead a little bit, Jerry makes friends among the KKK set and even gets inducted with a few other guys during a bizarre ceremony, but Lonnie and Andrea get roughed up by the two black organizers who need their help in killing whitey. In the final scene, all hell breaks loose: the black agitators face the lynch mob and Jerry has to convince his LA friends that he’s really on their side . . . before taking sweet revenge on the Klan!

The movie’s main poster claims that this hokey low-budget foolishness was “filmed in complete secrecy in the Deep South.” Not hardly. The place is off, and the characters are mostly off. Even the small-town black church used for the little girl’s funeral is whitewashed stucco with no greenery around it— basically, it’s a California church. Whoever dreamed up and made this farcical film knew nothing about the Deep South, its landscape, its people, or its social nuances. What is sad is that the poster’s other tag line was: “The most shattering film of our time!” Yeah, right.

In an even sadder note, under the alternate title “I Crossed the Color Line,” the film’s poster, which you can see on the imdb page, features a half-dressed Andrea transposed over top of she and Jerry in bed, and seems to insinuate with its imagery that the movie is some kind of taboo interracial-sex story.  Let’s be clear, there was nothing sexy – and very little Deep Southern – about “The Black Klansman.”

Filed under: Alabama, Civil Rights, Film/Movies, Social Justice, The Deep South