Selected for the National Film Registry in 1989, this drama marked the film time an American-American was hired to direct a major studio production. Renaissance man Gordon Parks helmed the film, based on his screenplay adapted from his novel. It's harder to think of another film under such a singular authorship. The result is a complex coming-of-age tale that defies expectations and resonates with emotional truth.
The story throws us into a tornado. Black teenager Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson, PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW) is lost in the storm. He ends up half delirious in a shack where the prostitute Big Mabel (Carol Lamond, BLACK GIRL) "pops his cherry." In talking with his friends about it later, he doesn't seem to have wanted anything to do with it. He's a sensitive young man who develops a crush on the new girl in town Arcella Jefferson (Mira Waters, THE GREATEST). His family works for the town judge Cavanaugh (Russell Thorson, HANG 'EM HIGH), whose progressive attitudes have rubbed off on his son Chauncey (Zooey Hall, I DISMEMBER MAMA)... somewhat. The young man likes ruffling feathers more than righting social wrongs.
Parks' tale paints a nuanced portrait of race relations in the late 1920s. People are people. Farmer Jake Kiner (George Mitchell, 3:10 TO YUMA) employs black just as much as whites, but when Marcus Savage (Alex Clarke), a notorious young troublemaker, steals apples from his orchard, he beats the black kid with a whip. Blacks and whites mix at black owned businesses, but blacks are not welcome at the white owned soda shoppe. A black man running from Sheriff Kirky (Dana Elcar, THE STING) might get shot in the back, but black kids will get paid to pull his body out of the pond.
Newt and Marcus are pitted against each other throughout the story. They represent two reactions to the prejudices and inequalities that blacks have to endure. Newt has two good parents and a supportive extended family that encourages him to have a better life than them. His saintly mother Sarah (Estelle Evans, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) tells him not to fear death, because you can't live your whole life in fear of things you can't change. In turn, Newt tries to rise above the bigotry towards blacks.
Marcus lashes out against the world. He has a love-hate relationship with his father Booker (Richard Ward, THE JERK), an illiterate, mean drunk. He gets in trouble with the law constantly. When black leaders try to reach out to him, he throws their help back in their faces, calling them blind hypocrites. He puts all his anger with the world onto the upwardly mobile Newt.
Parks, who was a predominant photojournalist, certainly had an eye for beautiful pictures. With cinematographer Burnett Guffey, he captures the beauty of rural Kansas from the flower-filled fields to deadly storms. As a storyteller, he might indulge in some melodrama, but the way I look at it white filmmakers indulged in it for decades before so why not. A sentimental "getting to know you" montage between Newt and Arcella doesn't come off as maudlin knowing that prior to this film blacks never got sweet scenes like this. What Parks' race relations tale brings that many white-directed tales of the same time do not is an evenhandedness. White characters in white directed films are often caricatures. Parks gives us bad whites, good whites and whites in between.
It's funny to talk about the portrayal of whites in this historical film for black directors, but they stand out. That is not to stay that his black characters do not stand out as well. Newt is a layered character. He tries to see the world like his blind Uncle Rob (Joel Fluellen, A RAISIN IN THE SUN), who judges a man on their character not their color. And yet the world makes him angry. Unlike Marcus, he tries to turn that anger into a positive. It's his motivation to make his life better.
Parks would follow this film with the wildly popular SHAFT, which gave black audiences a real action hero. But first he gave them a real coming of age story. But it's not just for a black audience. In telling a story based on his own life, he tells a unique tale that anyone can relate to. It's the human experience an audience connects to.
Buy "The Learning Tree" from Warner Archives!
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
