I'm really excited to see this one get discussed. Here's my writeup from the main thread, which I think will help inform my discussion questions below:
therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 12:32 am
This was pretty fun! It doesn't revolutionize the western in the ways I expected it to attempt from cursory research on all the civil rights and African-American cultural nods sewn into the picture, but that winds up being a strength rather than a weakness or perceived failure. The casting of two black leads is certainly novel, but even the plot touching on race relations with Native Americans has been done countless times before, here adding a third race group which is ultimately less integral to some absent didactic thematic focus than it is a narrative construct to reinforce collectivist attitudes already found in every other genre entry. The film operates within familiar terrain, adopting traditional western tropes and story functions and tweaking them only to include a universal message on community which can relate to humanism between races as much as it can serve as a pronouncement of the specific importance of black power brotherhood in united action. The key to the film's success is that it accomplishes both in surprisingly toned-down measures, leaving room for more shades of color, capitalizing on its social concerns while managing to dig its teeth firmly into juicy populist material.
Poitier channels his passionately personal thematic intent in the same entertaining fashion as your typical lighthearted, gratifying western, with a dual purpose alluding to and reinforcing real movements just as much as it leans into leisurely action fare and non-categorical or separatist characterization. This would be a mistake to read as assimilation or All Lives Matter 'blood-is-blood' messaging, but by striking a balance between fearlessly acknowledging the blackness of the characters as they relate to one another and their social environment, and proceeding to flesh out their personalities and dynamic dimensions as broadly generic human beings, this in many ways serves as a more effectively progressive product than it would if loudly pitched as a uniformed but thinly-laced edgy Important Film. That kind of objective could accidentally undercut its positive intentions with other'ing delineations, segregating races under misperceived conditions of the narrative thrust, especially in a genre oft resting on pitting black-and-white (not literally, read: all-or-nothing) groups against one another for the prize of familiar, endorsed morality. It's a deliberate film, and the rare one that triumphantly has its cake and its eats too. I don't mean to indicate that Poitier sugarcoats or shelters his communications, but that they are both particular and inclusive, never risking esoteric or alienating contexts to digest without disturbance, nor compromising the drives behind his vision.
Also, the movie is worth watching if only for a barely-recognizable Harry Belafonte, who remains a suspicious character for a solid chunk of the narrative yet captivates us with enigmatic charm as a co-lead all the while! His scenery-chewing is one of the main reasons I can put this in the recommend category. I'm not sure it'll be all that memorable tomorrow, but it's definitely a film I'd throw on again when I want to watch an economically-built, never-boring B-western, and to dig into the extras which I'm sure draw all sorts of significant connections that make the film much richer than what's obvious on the surface.
1.a) Given Sidney Poitier's documented motivations to create a progressive 'black' western, how do you perceive his success or failure in this area? Does he achieve progressiveness through producing a standard western to objectively demonstrate that black and white western characters can coexist under the same formula, rather than hijack a radical subjective agenda that may have 'other'd white audiences under a new template? Or does he play it too safe, and by not making a film radical 'enough', underplay the historical importance of his goal with a standard revisionist western that doesn't necessarily stand out amongst its era?
b) In what ways was this an impossible position to be in, judged by a diverse critical pool of audiences? (i.e. If this film stood out, it might attract more eyes, but alienate non-black audiences from seeing black faces in typical-white garb; if it doesn't, it risks being forgotten by many non-black audiences, but sends a message that modes of behavior/humanity does not change with skin color)... which then leads to another side of this question:
c) Who is this film for, and what is its intention? Is it for black audiences to have a movie of this genre to call 'theirs', or is it formally didactic to show white audiences that race is a social construct when it comes to differentiating humanness? And so, depending on how one reads its intention.. does the film come down more on the side of "color doesn't matter" or proudly declaring that it does, or does that depend on the audience it's preaching to?
2. Given your experience with Harry Belafonte's persona, how does this film enrich or challenge your notions?
