Native Son

Plot synopsis:
=== Book One: Fear ===
Bigger Thomas wakes up in a dark, small room at the sound of the alarm clock. He lives in one room with his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and their mother. Suddenly, a rat appears. The room turns into a maelstrom and after a violent chase, Bigger claims the life of the animal with an iron skillet and terrorizes Vera with the dead rodent. Vera faints and Mrs. Thomas scolds Bigger, who hates his family because they suffer and he cannot do anything about it.
That evening, Bigger has to see Mr. Dalton for a new job. Bigger's family depends on him. He would like to leave his responsibilities forever but when he thinks of what to do, he only sees a blank wall. He walks to the poolroom and meets his friend, Gus. Bigger tells him that every time he thinks about whites, he feels something terrible will happen to him. They meet other friends, G.H. and Jack, and plan a robbery of the white wealth. They are all afraid of attacking and stealing from a white man, but none of them wants to admit their concerns. Before the robbery, Bigger and Jack go to the movies. They are attracted to the world of wealthy whites in the newsreel and feel strangely moved by the tom-toms and the primitive black people in the film, but they also feel that they are equal to those worlds. After the cinema, Bigger returns to the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide his own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery occurring; Bigger is obscurely conscious that he has done this intentionally.
When he finally gets the job, Bigger does not know how to behave in the large and luxurious house. Mr. Dalton and his blind wife use strange words. They try to be kind to Bigger, but they actually make him very uncomfortable; Bigger does not know what they expect of him. Then their daughter, Mary, enters the room, asks Bigger why he does not belong to a union, and calls her father a "capitalist". Bigger does not know that word and is even more confused and afraid to lose the job. After the conversation, Peggy, an Irish cook, takes Bigger to his room and tells him that the Daltons are a nice family, but that he must avoid Mary's communist friends. Bigger has never had a room for himself before.
That night, he drives Mary around and meets her Communist boyfriend Jan. Throughout the evening, Jan and Mary talk to Bigger, oblige him to take them to the diner where his friends are, invite him to sit at their table, and tell him to call them by their first names. Bigger does not know how to respond to their requests and becomes very frustrated, as he is simply their chauffeur for the night. At the diner, they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drives throughout Washington Park, and Jan and Mary drink the rum and make out in the back seat. Jan and Mary part, but Mary is so drunk that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom when they arrive home. He is terrified someone will see him with her in his arms; however, he cannot resist the temptation of the forbidden, and he kisses her.
Just then, the bedroom door opens, and Mrs. Dalton enters. Bigger knows she is blind but is terrified she will sense him there. He silences Mary by pressing a pillow into her face. Mary claws at Bigger's hands while Mrs. Dalton is in the room, trying to alert Bigger that she cannot breathe. Mrs. Dalton approaches the bed, smells alcohol in the air, scolds her daughter, and leaves. As Bigger removes the pillow, he realizes that Mary has suffocated. Bigger starts thinking frantically, and decides he will tell everyone that Jan, her Communist boyfriend, took Mary into the house that night. Thinking it will be better if Mary disappears and everyone thinks she has left Chicago, he decides in desperation to burn her body in the house's furnace. Her body would not originally fit through the furnace opening, but after decapitating her, Bigger finally manages to put the corpse inside. He adds extra coal to the furnace, leaves the corpse to burn, and goes home.
=== Book Two: Flight ===
Bigger's current girlfriend Bessie suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work. Mr. Dalton has called a private detective, Mr. Britten. Britten interrogates Bigger accusingly, but Mr. Dalton vouches for Bigger. Bigger relates the events of the previous evening in a way calculated to throw suspicion on Jan, knowing Mr. Dalton dislikes Jan because he is a Communist. When Britten finds Jan, he puts the boy and Bigger in the same room and confronts them with their conflicting stories. Jan is surprised by Bigger's story but offers him help.
Bigger storms away from the Daltons. He decides to write a false kidnapping note when he discovers that the owner of the rat-infested flat his family rents is Mr. Dalton. Bigger slips the note under the Daltons' front door and then returns to his room. When the Daltons receive the note, they contact the police, who take over the investigation from Britten, and journalists soon arrive at the house. Bigger is afraid, but he does not want to leave. In the afternoon, he is ordered to take the ashes out of the furnace and make a new fire. He is terrified and starts poking the ashes with the shovel until the whole room is full of smoke. Furious, one of the journalists takes the shovel and pushes Bigger aside. He immediately finds the remains of Mary's bones and an earring in the furnace, and Bigger flees.
Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides that he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie on the head with a brick before throwing her through a window and into an air shaft. He quickly realizes that the only money he had was in her pocket.
Bigger runs through the city. He sees newspaper headlines concerning the crime and overhears different conversations about it. Whites hate him and blacks hate him because he brought shame on the black race. After a wild chase over the rooftops of the city, the police catch him.
=== Book Three: Fate ===
During his first few days in prison, Bigger does not eat, drink, or talk to anyone. Then Jan comes to visit him. He says Bigger has taught him a lot about black-white relationships and offers him the help of a communist lawyer named Max. In the long hours Max and Bigger spend talking, he starts understanding his relationships with his family and with the world. He acknowledges his fury, his need for a future, and his wish for a meaningful life. He reconsiders his attitudes about white people, whether they are aggressive like Britten, or accepting like Jan. Bigger is found guilty in front of the court and sentenced to death for murder; however, at the end of the novel, he appears to come to terms with his fate.

Tags: tragedy, depressing, murder

Review:
A terrible adaptation of a wonderful book.
I'm not sure what Diane Silver was thinking when she was making this movie, but it obviously had nothing to do with Richard Wright's novel, which the movie is based on.We read the novel this past summer for AP English 12, and just watched the film.
During periodic note-taking and checking of the clock, I contemplated the chances of being struck by lightning.
Of course, the sky was completely clear, and I was forced to watch the rest of the movie...
and then write a 5-paragraph essay on it.Wright's novel discussed very real themes, of the mind of a killer and the psychology behind it.
Silver's movie turned a murderer into a victim, which is NOT what Wright wanted (see: "How Bigger was Born" 454).I'm going to make this short and sweet: if you want to leave your consciousness, in Raphael Lambert's words, unsullied, skip the movie and read the book.
The 1986 adaptation is not thought-provoking material....
::sigh:: Now I have to write the essay..
Doesn't have the impact the novel had.
Synopsis: A young black man from the poor streets of Chicago, gets the opportunity of a lifetime working as a chauffer for a wealthy family.
But in an effort not to jeopardize his first day on the job, something goes horribly wrong leaving him responsible for a murder.The Review: Richard Wright's novel is an intense depiction of one man, trying to protect and better himself, whose own self is unwillfully brought into something he just gets into deeper.
The book itself is five hundred pages and broken down into three separate novellas.
One chunk of the book is exclusively devoted to a lawyer's speech about racism, that was completely excised from the film.
The film, in a manner of speaking, is relatively different because it's compressed all the information.
The film lacks the spark the book had as well as the impact.
Not much sympathy can be said for any of the characters because their development just isn't strong enough.
It's a distorted film that doesn't have any strengths to it, and the climax at the end, is really broken down to nothing more than just a series of edited scenes and voiceovers.
If you love the novel, and want to see the film, just stick with the novel, because they simply aren't the same.
Grade: C-.
lots of talent, but a dramatic misfire.
Few movies ever measure up to the books they're based on, and sometimes the only safe way to judge a literary adaptation is on its own terms, as if the source material never existed.
Which makes the screen version of Richard Wright's celebrated novel — faithfully set in 1940 Chicago — a curiously dated social artifact.
It demands a little mental arithmetic to update the story, about an angry young ghetto black who, in a moment of fear and desperation, accidentally suffocates the daughter of the wealthy, white family for whom he works as a servant.
The issues of black and white are rightfully shown to be shaded with gray, but the production may be too slick for its own good.
The film might have worked better had it been more harsh and controversial, more willing to disturb the complacency of self-satisfied viewers who, like Elizabeth McGovern's character, seek to prove their open-minded color blindness by their condescending ignorance of the wide gulf separating the two races.
A talented, high profile cast is enough reason to recommend the film..
Raises many important issues..
This was a good film.
It had some flaws, but was well worth a viewing.
It takes on many issues which most current films gloss over or ignore entirely.This is the second film of "Native Son," a Richard Wright book about a young black man who gets caught up in some tragic events in 1940's Chicago.
Bigger Thomas, the young protagonist, goes to work for a wealthy white family after some prodding from his mother, played by Oprah Winfrey.
He is drawn into the aforementioned events by the family's young and slightly wild daughter, played by Elizabeth McGovern.There are several good scenes where the tension and a sense of claustrophobia is palpable.
A scene near the end in a police station, in which all the main characters convene around Bigger, is effective but problematic.
This scene is overwrought and unrealistic - there is no way all those people would be in the same room at once."Native Son" delves into the issues of racism, poverty and integration.
It doesn't have easy answers for the audience, but rather leaves the questions out there for the viewer to ponder..
Good job.
Bigger is a teenager who is so poor he and his mother must share a bedroom in an apartment that appears to be falling apart, and they don't have enough money to eat well.
When they get out of bed, two other hidden children pop up from under the covers--Bigger's sister sleeps with her mother, and his brother sleeps with him, and the males must turn around while the females get dressed.
To improve their situation, Bigger's mother knows of a great opportunity for him and hopes he will finally get a job he can hold on to.
If he doesn't, things could be even worse (at least they HAVE a home now).Bigger goes to be with his friends when he should be interviewing for the job.
He lets them know he will NOT work for the white man.
Yet he does finally show up at the home of a rich family, and immediately turns into what his friends would likely call an Uncle Tom--not Stepin Fetchit, but respectful and polite.Everything appears to be going well for a while, but then something quite terrible changes the situation drastically.Oprah Winfrey came across quite convincingly as a poor black mother.
This was in the days before she became a superstar talk show host.
I won't say it's too bad she was successful in her best-known career, because she did so much good, but she could have been quite a fine actress.
Victor Love was good as Bigger, primarily because Bigger had to be so convincing in order to keep his job.
A great performance came from John Karlen as a defense lawyer (yes, someone needed a lawyer).This was an African Heritage Network Monthly Movie Classic.
It wasn't as good as some movies selected for this honor, but it was pretty good..
A reasonable adaptation, could've been better..
Having been on set a few days I can say the acting overall was very good.
A good early dramatic performance by Oprah.
(Hint: She get's in a funky blue mood by singing spirituals offstage between takes) And a very impressive performance by Victor Love.
Since everybody was working for scale all the names were to be listed and evenly credited.Question: Who played Oprah's daughter?
Diamond Dawn Cook (AKA: AdrienneCook) That's not in the IMDb database.I was also impressed by the rat wrangler.
Who knew so much effort went into that one scene.
One rat to skitter across the floor.
One to cower in the corner.
And one killed, though not really with a frying pan..
This story blows...book and movie(s)....
Hey look, deal with it, there are much better portrayals of the hardship of black America than this.
Although I think this story is weak, my criticism is focused on the poor execution of the story, which I have mentioned, blows.This was made in the mid-80's and is horrible in the music/score department.
It's funny to see Oprah as a latter-day crack-whore type.The scene where Bigger stuffs Elizabeth McGovern into the incinerator.
Pure classic cinema.
First off, I don't care how drunk you are, you will react to 1200F degree flame (no matter how bad your acting).
But they really milked that scene...it was comical.
I'll tell you what though, I had great satisfaction in seeing Elizabeth McGovern burn in a faux death; she annoys me..
Bla--One of the WORST.
Of all the movies I've seen, this one rates almost at the bottom (Haunted Mansion, Nothing but Trouble and a few others keep it from reaching rock bottom.) It is hasty, the story is shaky and the events depicted are poorly acted.
Of course we have to lay some of this at the book writer's door.
The book the movie was filmed after is outrageously ponderous, and illogical.
Oprah gives a palatable appearance as "Bigger's" mom, but is not nearly at her potential.
Other famous performers also seem to be at their worst.
The plot which centers around an African American who decided to take a job as a chauffeur.
In driving the family daughter to a communist dinner he becomes acquainted.
One thing leads to another and the girl gets drunk.
Now the family he's working for are not against blacks, but he thinks they are.
So when he comes home he puts her to bed, but she begins caterwauling.
The blind mother (yes) hears this, so Bigger tries to silence her, but instead smothers her.
Now fearing he's really in trouble for killing a white girl he does what any logical thinking man would do--he shoves her into the coal furnace.
So investigators are carrying out a missing person case and lo they check the furnace (the idiot didn't have the foresight to get rid of the ashes.
He is then arrested and the last hour or so are obnoxious segments from the courtroom.
If your desperate for a bad movie, this one could do the job, but if you seriously want to learn about culture issues in th 40's and 50's or see a good drama, there are a lot better options.
Avoid this.