Outstanding film
This 1972 film is an adaptation of the William Faulkner short story of the same name. The late Horton Foote made his name adapting great works of American literature for stage and screen. This is another one of Foote?s excellent adaptations. The screenplay is much longer and more developed than the original Faulkner short story.
The film stars a young Robert Duvall as Depression Era cotton farmer, Jackson Fentry. The film was shot in grainy black and white to evoke the Great Depression. The soundtrack with its strains of hymns and folksongs also evokes the Depression Era in the deep south. The film starkly and realistically portrays the poverty and desperation felt by many during that time period. The actors have a gaunt look and are costumed in many layers of torn, safety-pinned and worn out clothing.
The film opens with and ends with a courthouse scene with a defense attorney giving the closing argument in a murder trial and the jury deliberating. There is a lone holdout juror, Jackson Fentry, who refuses to vote for acquittal, resulting in a mistrial. The attorney feels a need to understand why he couldn?t convince that juror, and he narrates the action of the film which depicts what the attorney learned about Fentry from talking to neighbors and a former employer.
The viewer next sees a much younger Fentry walking 30 miles to a winter job as a lumber mill caretaker. Fentry sets up house in the mill?s boiler room. Fentry investigates a strange noise and finds an unconscious, pregnant woman lying on the ground outside. Fentry wakes her up and helps the obviously sick and exhausted woman (Olga Bellin) into the boiler room, so she can get some rest. Duvall plays Fentry with a silent intensity. Throughout much of the movie, Duvall?s character is silent. Bellin?s character does almost all of the talking. However, Duvall carries the movie with an incredible range of emotions displayed largely through gestures and body language.
Caring for the woman gives Fentry a new sense of purpose and meaning which quickly turns into a gallant, restrained and unspoken love. When the woman dies in childbirth, all of that love is transferred to the baby, whom Fentry gives the improbable name of Jackson and Longstreet Fentry. The silent montage of images of Fentry doing farm chores with the baby strapped to his chest, picking cotton and playing hide and seek with the toddler, and then teaching his young boy to say his bedtime prayers is a nice touch.
The narrator?s final words will continue to haunt you long after the movie is over. The dvd includes an enjoyable joint interview of Robert Duval and Horton Foote. The dvd also comes with a booklet of Faulkner?s short story.
