Fences is a film adaptation of an August Wilson play set in 1957 Pittsburgh. Fences is a powerful portrait of a flawed giant of a man, Troy, whose humanity is still retained despite his inability to remain “safe.” He has three children who he is unable to fully connect to, unintentionally sabotages his most important relationships and on some level, knowingly betrays his loved ones. Fences is about a man that gradually alienates himself into oblivion in reaction to life’s shortfalls whether due to systematic racism or the vicissitudes of circumstance. Denzel Washington directed and starred in Fences. Viola Davis has a crucial supporting role as the main character’s wife, Rose. A friend recently asked if Fences is just Washington yelling for 139 minutes. Technically yes, but Fences is some magnificent, iconic yelling by both Washington and Davis and is a must see for those who are not theater lovers usually disappointed with any film adaptations of plays.
When August Wilson was winning a Tony Award, and his plays were on Broadway, I was growing up in Manhattan. I may not have been mature enough to see and understand his plays, but I knew about them. The idea of even trying to see one of his plays was not even in the realm of possibility- let’s get food, rent and tuition. If my school had a field trip to a play, then I would go, and I would enjoy it, but theater was not a part of entertainment reality for me and was not even theoretically discussed like trips to the movie theater. (Wendy Wasserstein, please don’t cry.) I did not start seeing movies in theaters until 1985 when I was 10 years old, and it was a rare treat because my mom considered most movies inappropriate for a Christian.
Now I am an adult with a mortgage, no student loans and no standing credit card debt so I’m a few inches past survival. My mom despairs over how I can be a Christian and see so many movies. One thing has not changed though. It never occurs to me to see plays except when a friend or a well-publicized event reminds me of their existence. I’m still the poor kid who thinks that plays are not for me even if black playwrights were writing with someone like me in mind. So that is why the plot of a play as well known as Fences was completely unknown to me, a forty-one year old woman, and plays need to be adapted by film regardless of how different the audience’s experience is in the theater.
I wanted to see Fences in the theater for a few reasons. First, a black person directed Fences. Sure that black person is Denzel Washington, who rarely has difficulties packing a theater, but he did not get an Oscar for Malcolm X so better safe than sorry if I want to insure that more films with black people in production continue to get made. Second, Viola “Why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone” Davis, the dramatic boss, is in Fences. Third, I finally get to see August Wilson’s work albeit not in its original form.
I suppose that I should not have been surprised that the theater showing Fences was full of people, most of them older than me. Unfortunately Fences was adjacent to a theater showing Sing, a kids’ movie with a shorter running time, so when that movie finished, Fences was in its final act-an unwelcome contrast in mood. This poor theater placement did not diminish my enjoyment of the film, and I am delighted that I finally got to see what all the fuss was about.
As a film, Washington is a bit clunky and stiff as a director, which is fine because it is all about the magnificent performances. There was one belabored scene when the camera focused on Rose dropping her rose. We get it! I am willing to forgive all of this for Washington’s brief nod to magical realism at the end. Please tell me if the play uses the same device. It is such a hopeful, redemptive note to all the quotidian troubles and flaws of Fences and implies a brighter spiritual shadow to the realism of Fences.
Fences is all about the acting. Both Washington and Davis had tons of practice playing Troy and Rose in the theater. Washington is the lead, but there is a point in Fences when Davis just tucks the film under her arm and walks away with the whole thing. Sure actors can be generous with each other, but when you steal the movie from the man who dominates the screen and is directing, you had to be better in unfathomable ways. Davis put her foot in this performance. I am so excited that Grimm’s Russell Hornsby was in Fences.
Fences as a story addresses how people use fences to keep people in and closer to them, but end up pushing them away.
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When Troy encourages his older son to get an ordinary job, refuses to see him perform and mocks him for not having money, he does this because he wants his son to be safe and not fall into his earlier pitfalls, but his son does anyway and Troy’s behavior only ruined what time they had. When Troy discourages his younger son from playing football and encourages him to keep his afterschool job, he is trying to protect his son from the heartbreak of failed dreams and find a safe career to survive, but only ends up with another potential nightmare, the specter of Troy’s brother’s injury when the younger son enlists in the military. Troy gets a better job, but ends up estranged from his friend. Troy is so tangled up in forcing others to do what he thinks is best in order to avoid his past pitfalls that he ends up repeating and recreating past trauma and destroying what he was able to build. Fences is about trying to break that vicious cycle and failing, but tinged with a hope that all is not lost. The little girl is a symbol of unlikely hope.