Fences: A Powerful Play Remains a Bit Too Theatrical in its Transition to the Big Screen
Adapted for the screen by playwright August Wilson prior to his death in 2005, Fences tells the story of Troy Maxson, a black man working as a garbageman and raising a family in 1950’s Pittsburgh. After leaving home at the age of fourteen, Troy spent time on the streets and in jail before discovering his gift for baseball — a gift that he was never able to take to the major leagues due to the color of his skin. Still bitter that lesser men were given a chance because they were white (and obsessed with the mediocre batting average of one particular player), Troy is a man who has lived his entire life with the cards stacked against him because of his race. And yet, Troy’s problem is that he believes those cards were only stacked against him; he seems to have little awareness of how the obstacles in his life have prevented not only him, but those closest to him, from achieving their dreams.
Troy is a figure who elicits great sympathy from the audience at the start of the film, especially as he spins charming, gin-soaked yarns of dancing with the devil. It helps that Troy is played by Denzel Washington, who possesses more charisma in one gleamingly white-toothed smile than many other performers do in their entire bodies. But, as the film progresses, and Troy continues to take a lifetime of frustration out on his family and friends, one can’t help but have greater sympathy for Troy’s wife, Rose (a luminous Viola Davis), and his teenage son, Cory (Jovan Adepo). As Rose points out to Troy in a climactic confrontation that occurs after Troy confesses a great indiscretion — an emotionally draining piece of acting that should win Davis a much-deserved Oscar — he is not the only one to feel as though his life has been at a standstill for the past eighteen years. If Troy has been stuck in a rut, Rose has been stuck there alongside him all that time. This is a sacrifice of which Troy seems to have little understanding, too tangled up in his own thoughts of what could have been.
Troy’s treatment of Cory is no better; it is one of tough love, albeit exceedingly heavy on the toughness. At one point, Cory even asks his father, “Why don’t you like me?” Troy’s explanation for his harshness — he is obligated to do what is best for his son, not necessarily to like him — is a prime example of the complexities inherent in this character. Troy refuses to let Cory play football or to meet with a college scout who has expressed interest in Cory’s talent; he doesn’t want his son pinning all his hopes on a sports career the way he once did. Troy firmly believes that Cory is better off being disappointed now by his father’s refusal to allow him to play than he is being disappointed in the future when he is inevitably tossed aside in favor of a less talented white athlete (or so Troy says). If Cory’s dreams are to be crushed, it may as well be now, while it is still early enough for him to choose another path. Troy refuses to accept that times have changed and that more doors have opened for men of color, content to hide behind the fence that he spends every weekend building around his backyard. His stubbornness may be infuriating, but it comes from a very real place.
As both the lead actor and director of Fences, Washington embraces the theatricality of Wilson’s material. His own performance is almost too outsized for the screen; one can feel his pain and anger radiating out towards the back of the auditorium as though he were standing on a stage before you. He directs in the same style, setting up the majority of his scenes in wide shots that encompass all of the characters, who are all neatly arranged and cheated out accordingly as they would be if they were on an actual stage before an audience. In contrast with Washington’s scenery-chewing performance, Davis finds a better balance between the theatricality of the material and the medium being used to deliver it. Her portrayal of long-suffering Rose is all the more heart-wrenching because of the natural way she delivers lines that if grasped by a heavier hand could easily veer into melodrama. There are a lot of long takes that allow Washington, Davis and the rest of the talented ensemble to meander through their monologues at their own pace. As a director, Washington knows that he can trust his actors with the material, and so mostly sits back and allows the camera, and the audience, to observe them.
This stagecraft-influenced style of directing means that when Washington does make the rare decision to utilize a close-up, such as a pan down to a red rose abandoned on the grass, or a cutaway to a shot of lightning flashing on a wall-mounted cross during a thunderstorm, it feels a bit distracting and heavy-handed. (It doesn’t help that said shots are usually used to highlight symbolic images that are not in the least bit subtle.) The film’s limited locations — almost every scene takes place either in the house, the backyard or the street out front — further impress upon the audience that Fences is meant to be seen on on the stage, with minimal set dressing so that one can focus entirely on the characters placed within this world. It also gives the entire enterprise an appropriate feeling of claustrophobia, which only increases as the fence slowly begins to go up around the yard. Like Troy, we too are unable to escape his narrow existence.
Fences is not necessarily enjoyable to watch; it is far more painful than it is entertaining. But even if one wishes that Washington had approached the material differently for this adaptation, one cannot deny the power of the story or the realness of the people — people who have been swept aside and forgotten, people who opportunity passed by as a result of poverty or race. Troy Maxson’s story might not be extraordinary, but it is precisely its ordinariness that makes it worth telling.
