Vonia
The Defiant Ones (1958)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Watched: May 31, 2018
Rating: 7/10 Intriguing premise,
Escaped convicts wed by chain,
One black and one white.
Humanity defeats hate,
Well acted, with room for laughs. Two music sources-
Radio, irksome singing.
A Defiant Film back then,
Now it needs more backstory,
Less vain fights and name calling. Somonka is a form of poetry that is essentially two tanka poems (the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format), the second stanza a response to the first. Traditionally, each is a love letter and it requires two authors, but sometimes a poet takes on two personas. My somonka will be a love/hate letter to this film?
#Somonka #PoemReview #AcademyBestCinematography #GoldenGlobesBestPicture #Racism
berberian00-276-69085
Before anything else I wish to stipulate here, that this writing is non-partisan one and has nothing to do with any form of racism, communism or whatsoever deviant behavior - cf., "Defiant Ones" (1958) and also less prominent remake with Carl Weathers and Robert Urich in 1986. If Stanley Kramer dared to produce this movie in 1958 and Tony Curtis (White Male Caucasian) participate in principal leading role, subsequently I don't see reason to swell 60 years later when about half of Hollywood actors are colored and Film Industry in the making depend on this people. The reason I took this small undertaking is to try (if possible) to dispel the myth of African American Culture, its boundaries and genesis, and its role in interpreting current history of USA and all English speaking people on this planet Earth. It's a fair coin, I think both Blacks and Whites should understand me."The Defiant Ones" (1958), gave Sidney Poitier his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Five years later, he won the Oscar for "Lilies of the Field" (1963), the first African American to win for a leading role. His roles in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967) and "To Sir, with Love" (1967) were for their time landmarks in the breaking down of social barriers between African Americans and Whites.I took the paragraph above as citation from IMDb. Certainly its a good place here to mention some other Black American film stars that I have remembered vividly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - Harry Belafonte, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Yaphet Kotto, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor (died of dementia in 2005), Eddie Murphy, etc. Those were people that single-handedly could perform and produce a good Movie for the Big Audience. There are other names that I have missed maybe, but as a rule good Films in those times were the ones that were remembered. In the 1990s already African Americans in Hollywood Films became a cliché, there were so many nominations and deserved medleys that I am not in position right now to make an appreciation.I will go further a little bit. I am a self-conscious citizen and read all kind of literature (on equal opportunity). I have books in my library on Black Racism and White Racism, the way it started in the American Southwest from the years of 1860 and on. Mass Organizations such as Ku Klux Clan appeared as reaction on the loosing Confederate side. As counter reaction the free Black Americans left their cluster Southern States and migrated internally East and West all over USA. They started to study Culturally and Physically in High Schools and Universities. They interbreed freely in marriages with Whites and casted a singular alloy of racial unity - namely, Mulattos (if you can distinguish them physically) are as good as Blond or Brunette Whites. So what's the case here? Why are we still reading pieces of literature like "We Charge Genocide" (1951) by Civil Rights Congress on pages of Wikipaedia. It's high time for reconciliation ...
ElMaruecan82
"The Defiant Ones" was retitled in French, "The Chain", as if the real issue was the relationship between John "Joker" Jackson and Noah Cullen, Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as two fugitives from a chain gang, a white and a black man shackled together and forced to cooperate and trust each other in order to survive. The chain would become such a symbol that during Sidney Poitier's AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, Curtis asked him to lift his left hand, he did the same, and suddenly, we could almost see the chain magically reappears as the symbol of this brotherly bond that transcends the color of the skin. But I guess "The Defiant Ones" resonates as a more complex and thought-provoking title, because it doesn't rely on the obvious, but rather on the two character's resentful attitudes, that visually fits the beautiful black and white cinematography. Both have accumulated anger and frustration all their lives, Jackson is tired of being an average nobody saying "thanks" to the big shots to get more money, while Cullen as a black man from the South, is tired of "being nice" and being called "boy" and swallowing his pride in moments where a nice punch on the face is tickling his hand. As prisoners, both incarnate the same consequence to two different kinds of exclusions: by class and by races Yet their escape is not meant to inspire our sympathy or to portray them as two unfortunate individuals victims of circumstances. "The Defiant Ones" is a powerful social commentary about the way America is viewed from the very bottom and how the vision encourages criminal vocations by perverting what could be a stimulating legitimate desire for revenge. But the movie avoids the kind of patronizing preaches à la 'Atticus Finch', the script is surprisingly modern in its tone, reminding of the New Hollywood independent wave of the 70's. Take the sheriff, played by Theodore Bikel, he's not your typical racist bigot, but a professional man assigned to get the prisoners, and no one in his team is portrayed as a cold-blooded killer either.The only bit of fantasy is the idea of a chain between a black and white man: "the warden had a sense of humor", they say, maybe he thought that in a case of an escape, the toughest prisoners would end up killing each other anyway. Even if the explanation doesn't convince some purists, seriously, I'm glad the writers didn't abandon such a great premise for the sake of realism; the film is still a drama but not a documentary. Yet, there is something sincere and truthful in Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier's performances. Curtis makes it hard to believe that he'd be Daphne in "Some Like it Hot", and Poitier exudes a tough coolness that contrasts with the elegant and soft-spoken roles of the 60's, and I could never resist to his "bowling green, sewing machine", the blues song that helps him to keep a good spirit in hopeless situations.Whether by singing, grunting, or fighting, the defiant attitude has its limits, because the success of the escape only depend on cooperation. Yet the film trusts its material enough not to jump into inspirational conclusions quickly. When they cross the river, Cullen thanks Jackson for having pulled him out of the water, Jackson rectifies: he prevented himself to drown. Their solidarity is only built on survival instinct, like when they successfully get out of a pool of mud. They're confronted to a new situation when they break into a small town's grocery store, to get food and tools and risk a lynching. Curtis tries to reason the men, but when it gets desperate, he invokes his whiteness (the look Poitier gives him at that moment is a killer). Cullen knows it's over and doesn't hesitate to spit on the guy who teases him, even if it got him a slap in the face.The mob's depiction is compensated by the intervention of 'Big' Sam, Lon Chaney Jr. as a former chain prisoner who frees them in the morning. The journey goes on, when after an ultimate fight, they end up in the house of a single mother living with her son. The two prisoners finally get rid of the chain and the morning after, they finally take different directions. Before taking the car with his new woman, Jackson learns that she gave Cullen wrong indications using him as a bait. Jackson leaves her in a state of rage that earns him a bullet in the process. Only Jackson and Cullen could see how similar they were, how brothers they became in the same fight. And it's out of respect, earned the hard way, that Jackson goes to Cullen.The two men reunite in the swamp, and hearing the train whistles and the dog coming after them, they run for the most emblematic moment of the film. Cullen hops in the freight train but is incapable to drag Jackson aboard. In recognition of Jackson's previous gesture, Cullen sacrifices his only chance of freedom by jumping and both tumble to the ground as if they still had a chain. They're exhausted physically, but their spirit is as high as it never was, they can only wait for the police to come after them. When the sheriff finds them, Cullen sings his song, while Jackson in his arms, about to pass out, smiles at him. The chase is over, but it's not an unhappy ending, the three men are smiling, and Poitier concludes: "bowling green, sewing machine"It's only by defying their own selfishness and racial boundaries, that the defiant ones gained in humanity at the price of freedom. And when Poitier raises his hand, asking Curtis to join him as if they were still shackled, they've never been as shackled as when they didn't have the chain, and maybe that's the key of tolerance, to act as if we were all chained to each other.
