A brief sizzle before the fizzle
HERE is what sets film apart from television and theatre. Cinema is a tonal medium; mood is just as important as what is seen and heard. In fact, some of the most powerful statements in cinema are neither seen nor heard but merely implied.
And here is the thing about Fences and why it doesn’t work. We want to like it – the mixture of a great play, written by August Wilson, one of the defining literary voices of the 20th century and starring two of the best performers working today is an exciting prospect. It’s the perfect recipe but it underwhelms at every level and fails to deliver.
When people say Fences is a good film, it’s difficult to understand what they are talking about. There is a staccato that weighs it down from the beginning and refuses to relent in its two-and-a-half hour running time. I kept shifting in my seat hoping the gears of the film would do the same but they never did. The script was originally written by Wilson and later reworked by Denzel Washington, who also directs the film.
But just where this reworking took place is not clear. The text is incredibly verbose and at some point, the gimmick of interesting stories, ravenous monologues and showing off diction wears thin. The words which are supposed to be part of the film’s appeal end up being a fence in themselves, refusing to let us into the inner lives of these characters.
That is why some of the events in Fences come left field, unexpected and unearned. One such moment is an exchange that happens when Troy’s son Cory (Jovan Adepo) comes home furious that his father has refused to allow him to play football.
This moment made me think of the confrontation between John Malkovich and Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman. Now there is a victorious adaptation of a play into a film. One that retains the hand-made quality of the theatre but makes the necessary concessions for the screen.
Fences by contrast has a faux intimacy. It lacks dramatic electricity and that scene as father and son confront each other in full view of the street underpins this reality perfectly. It sizzles briefly before fizzling into nothing.
The stillness of Fences and how even in movement the characters seem to be standing in the same place is perhaps a metaphor for the stillness in their lives, but it is more stunted than it is poetic.
The film at it s centre is about how we can never know people and the selective nature of memory and storytelling. The tricky part about how the film is made however is that we are never able to really decide anything for ourselves. As opposed to going through the experiences of the characters with them, everything is served to us.
They tell us everything and we are constantly taken out of the story by this imposition on our viewing experience.
The performances themselves have great potential but are under-served by an indulgent script and somewhat naïve filmmaking. One of the most underappreciated parts of Washington is his physicality, the ability to use and manipulate his posture at will. In the opening of Fences there is a moment where a short tracking shot follows Troy and his workmate and friend Jim (Stephen Henderson); just in the way he walks he seems to carry so much age and weight.