SHADRACH
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Columbia Pictures Director: Susanna Styron Writer: Susanna Styron, William Styron, Bridget Terry Cast: Harvey Keitel, Andie MacDowell, John Franklin Sawyer, Scott Terra, Daniel Treat, Monica Bugajski, Darrell Larson, Deborah Hedwall, Tom Bower, John Sawyer, Martin Sheen
If this story's narrator were alive today, he'd be 73 years old, a certainty that's difficult to accept since we see him as an adorable, sensitive lad just ten years old in the Depression-torn America of 1935. "Shadrach," told from the point of view of little Paul Whitehurst (Scott Terra), deals with the boy's encounter with a 99-year-old black man who has walked all the way from Alabama to rural Tidewater, Virginia, to request burial in the land of his birth. The tale is a quietly moving one based on a short story by William Styron which was published in Esquire magazine in 1978 and which has been carefully and decorously adapted for the screen by his daughter, Susanna, with the help of Bridget Terry. Though this is a simple Depression story, plainly told and without the complexities of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," it has a universal resonance that goes beyond its unadorned details. The title figure, Shadrach (John Franklin Sawyer), is going home to die, and by communicating his burial wishes provides for the young people a graphic lesson: death is a part of life and is not to be feared.
The tale opens on the Whitehurst household in the Tidewater, Virginia of 1935, one which appears untouched by the Depression. Paul dad (Darrell Larson) and mom (Deborah Hedwall) enjoy the services of a cook, they all dress for dinner, and use their shiny, new motorcar to enjoy regular vacations. Yet they are not snobs, allowing their youngster to play with his best friend, Little Mole (Daniel Treat), who lives in ramshackle quarters on the other side of the tracks. Little Mole's father, Vernon Dabney (Harvey Keitel) and mom, Trixie (Andie MacDowell), earn their scant living by selling bootleg liquor, and Vernon blames his financial problems, strangely enough, on President Franklin D. Roosevelt whose New Deal does nothing for him. As he describes his woes, cursing intermittently, photographer Hiro Narita's camera pans the warren, formerly part of a lush plantation, to observe several pregnant young women; a quick, distant look at a couple making love in a beat-up car; and the adult inhabitants guzzling bottled beer by the case. When the 99-year-old Shadrach appears, he does not make his presence felt with a melodramatic flourish, but seems to materialize out of nowhere. In barely audible tones, he informs the Dabney family of his desire to be buried on their land and is looked after sympathetically by Trixie, Vernon, Paul, and by the Dabney youngsters. Informed by the sheriff that burying a black man on Dabney's own land is illegal in Virginia, the Dabneys employ the services of a black undertaker in a nearby county whose $35 fee is considered exorbitant. The family must resort to imaginative tactics to fulfill Shadrach's wish.
"Shadrach" is wonderfully acted, particularly by Andie MacDowell as a beer-swilling, earthy wife who loves her family, tolerates her poverty, and shows particular sensitivity to the plight of the stranger in their midst. The story is directed with no sense of urgency by Susanna Styron, who had thought about making this movie since her dad published the tale in 1978. Her dialogue is anything but pressing: Shadrach: "I'd like to see the mill pond." Trixie: "How come you want to see the mill pond?" Shadrach: "I want to see the mill pond."
Paul takes in this dialogue, cleverly figuring that Shadrach does not long for his slave days but wants only to recapture his innocence, the one untroubled part of his life. In one compelling scene, the Dabney children are skinny-dipping in the pond when they turn into Shadrach as a young boy, swimming likewise with his friends in the very same water, giving the whole narrative a feeling for history.
While the targeted audience for "Shadrach" is probably children of the ages of 8-15, the film is a heart-rending, even stirring story for mature adults as well. The movie is in no way marred by literary devices, particularly Martin Sheen's occasional narration. At times it runs the risk of seeming a defense of slavery, in that Shadrach longs to be buried on the land in which he was born to servitude and insists that he considers himself a Dabney, a part of the plantation-owning family. When Vernon Dabney exclaims that some black people were better off before they were emancipated in 1865, his statement is far from laughable. After all, he points out, the slaves were taken care of better than they were after they took on paid jobs as sharecroppers: they were buried right on the plantation after their death under a system which became ironically illegal after the liberation. That family members could be wrenched apart by being separately sold off is indicated only briefly, in passing. By the conclusion of the tale, we can see why ten-year-old Paul's rendezvous with Shadrach became the most consequential experience of his life.
Rated PG-13. Running time: 88 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews