Fences (2016)

Much like the rest of the Oscar contenders this year, I knew very little about Denzel Washington‘s Fences. I hadn’t watched the trailers and I hadn’t seen the cast list past the director and Viola Davis. Both of those actors I admire greatly, although I haven’t seen Washington in as many as Davis. I remember watching a clip from somewhere but I do not remember where I had watched it or what context – so it was useless information. I had seen the poster on IMDb, which led me to believe it was a period drama, which was correct might I add. There is little else to tell you about what I knew about the film before watching it, other than a couple of reporters at the Golden Globes confusing the name with Hidden Figures. I had high hopes because I am a big fan of both Davis and Washington as actors and expected big things from the story as it looked very emotive. I had heard lots of great things about the film with no specifics, so I was looking forward to finding out all about the story and taking it apart to find out why people love it; similarly to La La Land. Armed with almost no information on the film or narrative of the film, I jumped into it.

This film is extremely personal, and it feels it the entire way through. What I want to figure out is how they managed to make me feel that all the way through. My best bet right now is because of the subject of the film being a small-scale tragedy. The story followed an ageing black man and his family in the 1950s, this is not a global story, there isn’t grand scale, consequences. But the problems that arise in the film should only be seen by the family themselves, we are intruders. Of course, this is not the only reason that this film is so personal. Other reasons include the basic cinematography. While watching the film, I remember thinking, “there isn’t a lot to this camera work is there?” I was right but I didn’t think of the purpose of that. One: the camera work is designed to fit the story. The story is nothing flashy and expensive to show (like many films today) so the cinematography sticks to that. Imagine if the camera was more active, like flying through the house searching for our characters. That doesn’t work because it doesn’t match how the rest of the film feels. Two: the script and story were originally a stage play. I imagine that Washington wanted to stay true to the format, which he very much did. After the opening scene, when Troy(Denzel Washington) and Jim Bono(Stephen Henderson) arrived home from work, the camera pretty much remained there for the rest of the long 2 and a bit hour long film. It felt like the characters were just rotating on the sets, from the back porch to the living room, to the front yard. So the cinematography also stuck to that theatre feeling, just sitting and observing most of the action and drama that occurred. The feeling that it is more play than film also can be found in the script(by August Wilson) containing quite a few long monologues, that are becoming rare in modern films. That part of the film did not feel like real life because dramatic monologues do not happen so ofter, however it felt dramatic and I think that is why it was set apart from other films this year. It feels very new because of its blend with the stage.

Something that has to be mentioned about this film is the performances. I was not let down one bit by the names I knew and I was blown away by the names I did not know. It was a fantastic cast and well played. Perhaps is Washington or Davis were worse at delivering them, then the monologues would have felt more out of places than they turned out to be. Although all of the actors were incredible, one stood out, Mykelti Williamson as Gabriel. The only other performance I had seen from Williamson was in his role as Bubba in Forrest Gump. For me, his role in this film evoked the most emotion from me. Gabriel had been injured in the war and now has an unnamed mental disability, throughout the film Troy is fighting to keep Gabriel out of a mental hospital so he can have his freedom to “chase the hell hounds” and “talk to St Peter.” It was because Williamson played it so well that it was so sad when Gabriel eventually did get institutionalised. This event in the story was one of a few tragedies that struck our flawed everyman protagonist and makes me, and hopefully, us, feel enormous amounts of empathy for Troy despite his flaws. Speaking of his flaws, I should go into detail as to why they were very important for his character. It was his flaws that caused the story for us. He was not the perfect father or the perfect husband, but if he was, we wouldn’t have had our primary hero and villain in the same character. We watch him hug his wife and make her laugh with joy, however, we also watch him as he chokes his youngest son on the ground with a baseball bat. Through seeing this dichotomy within a character, surprisingly, doesn’t make us hate him because we understand his actions. We have all felt overwhelming happiness and overpowering anger within the same day, most of us probably don’t feel it to that extent, hopefully. These emotions felt and shown by Troy also gives Washington a great excuse to show off his range as an actor (as if we need more proof).

Now I want to talk about the ending to the film, so, uh, spoilers. In the very last section of the film, we return to the Maxson family almost a decade later to find out that Troy has died. An off-screen death feels more real in this situation but I am going to talk about the lead up to that event. We see Troy return to a story a number of times through the narrative, the story of when he wrestled with death. When we first hear that story he is cheerful and making his friend laugh with it. He tells it as a success story where he beat death and it ran away. This optimistic approach to a false story establishes some, not all, of Troy’s character — he is confident in that he does best. He is talking about death, not to him because he doesn’t care. However, when we next return to this story from Troy he had just found out his mistress had died giving birth to his child. Troy is talking to “Mister Death” directly about how he wants death to stay away and how it won’t “be able to sneak up on [him] no more.” He is blaming death for what happened, thinking that it has taken someone else rather than him. This moment happens at the top of Troy’s tragedy and truly shows his fall from grace. What was once a joyous story is now a morbid promise. Now here, I realise I probably am looking too far into this and making up some aspects of the analysis, but I remain adamant, as Troy would, that the theme of death is used to highlight how Troy feels about life as a whole. Returning to the conclusion of the film, Troy has been taken by death and it is peaceful. Davis’ Rose said that he died hitting a baseball, another running theme in the film. He died a happy man and we, the audience, get to see how his life and actions have moulded the people in his family. Despite his sin, Troy’s daughter was a blessing to Rose even though she isn’t hers. Cory found a successful career in the military because his father kicked him out. The message is that despite the extremities of emotions, after your death, everyone is affected by your actions both in a positive and negative way. Deep. I was not a fan of the light out of the cloud moment with Gabriel, but it alleviated some tensions(or grief) and was a nice honest moment, I just wasn’t believable to me.

Overall, it was a charming film about life as a whole. It was about what you can do with life and what it means to others. I was left on a positive note to teach a moral lesson to viewers than life is what you make it, and that your existence touches everyone else’s. It is a powerful message and not one I expected from a film about daily life. Troy teaches us that even extreme mistakes can be okay in time through how delighted Rose is by Raynell(Saniyya Sidney), who is a result of her father’s adultery. I definitely think that this film is worthy of the nomination for best picture and maybe even the win because I found very little to complain about it. I would say it is not a perfect film for me because I, personally, am not a fan of the play format in a film, but it did give it a personal and individual feel. Also, the monologues were long and mostly unnecessary, I found myself losing interest at points such as these.The most overwhelming lesson I learned from this film is that of cinematography. It is okay to have a mild and uncurious camera if it fits the narrative it follows. I explained it earlier, but I hope that it is a lesson I hold with me.