Fences.
We build them to keep things in. We build them to keep things out. And that has certainly been the case with respect to race. There was once a time in America when there were any number of fences – some constructed de facto, others constructed de jure – that kept the whites at a safe distance from the “colored” people.
This film takes us back to a time when that was considerably more the case. The 1950s. Pittsburg. Fences constructed not on the level of “the South” but still imposing rather formidable barriers with regard to the hopes and the dreams of any particular “colored” man or woman.
The focus here is less on the overtly political and more on the considerably more complex and convoluted personal interactions between men and women who had to actually live with the reality of being “second class citizens”. Of being born that way.
Troy Maxson is hauling garbage. But he dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Unfortunately, by the time the Jackie Robinsons were starting to break down that “color line”, he was deemed too old to be among them.
The rest [for thousand upons thousands just like him] is history.
The film revolves by and large around someone who recognizes that while “things have changed” for his son’s generation, his own generation wasn’t around at the right time. And he has to live with the consequences of that. The bitter consequences in particular. And others are often around only for him to take it out on.
And then on top of all that there are the trials and the tribulations that any one us may well have to endure just in the course of being human all too human.
IMDb
[b]Fences opened on Broadway in 1987, winning the Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Actor (James Earl Jones), and Best Featured Actress (Mary Alice). A revival of “Fences” opened in 2010, winning the Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor Denzel Washington, and Best Actress (Viola Davis). All five adult actors reprise their roles in this film adaptation, with Washington also directing.
Denzel Washington has said that after having performed the play 114 times at the Cort Theatre in New York City in 2010, directing the film adaptation became quite a simple readjustment.
In the film’s opening shot, the most prominent building on the left side of the street is lettered PITTSBURGH COURIER. The Courier was Pittsburgh’s African-American newspaper, among the country’s most respected. One of its sportswriters, Wendell Smith, advocated for ending the color line in major league baseball and traveled in 1947 with Jackie Robinson through his inaugural season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.[/b]
trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2671706/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fences_(film
trailer: youtu.be/jj-ZYPVRQbc
FENCES [2016]
Directed by Denzel Washington
[b]Troy [to Bono]: They’re going to fire me, just because I asked? That’s all I did. I went to Mr. Rand and asked why only white people drive and the coloured collect. What’s the problem? I don’t count? They think only white people have the good sense to drive? You don’t need a degree. Anyone drives. Why only white drive and the coloured collect?
…
Troy: I spend my money where I’m treated right. I go down to Bella, say, I need a loaf of bread, I’ll pay you Friday, she gives it to me. What sense that make when I got money to spend it somewhere else and ignore the person who done right by me? That ain’t in the Bible.
Rose: Don’t come with the Bible. Why buy from somebody who charges more?
Troy: You buy where you want, I buy from people who been good to me.
…
Rose: Cory was recruited by a college football team.
Troy: I told that boy about that college football stuff. The white man will never let him get nowhere with that football. I told you the first time you came to talk…He ought to be recruited in fixin’ cars or some way to make a living.
…
Bono: Only two men played baseball better than you. Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson. The only ones who did more home runs than you.
Troy: And what does that get me? I don’t have a pot to piss in, not even a window to throw it out of.
Rose: Times have changed since you were playing, Troy…Times have changed a lot.
Troy: How the hell they changed?
Rose: A lot of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.
Bono: You right about that, Ro. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early.
Troy: There ought not never have been no time called “too early”.
…
Rose: They got a lot of colored baseball players now. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson.
Troy: I done seen a 100 niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I seen some temas Jackie Robinson couldn’t even make!..I talkin’ about if you could play ball then they ought to let you play. Don’t matter what color you are.
…
Troy: That’s what death is for me: a fastball on the outside corner.
Rose: I don’t know why you want to start talking about death.
Troy: Death’s no problem, it’s part of life. Everyone dies. I, you, Bono. We’re all going to die. But no, you don’t like to talk about it.
…
Troy: I reached down, I grabbed that sickle from Mr. Death. I threw it as far as I could throw it. And me and Mr. Death commensed to wrestling. We wrestled for three days and three nights!
…
Rose [to Lyons]: Anything your Pop can’t understand, he want to call it the devil.
…
Troy: Why ain’t you working?
Lyons: Pop, you know I can’t find no decent job. Where can I find one? You know that I can’t find.
Troy: I told you I know people. I can get you on the rubbish work. I told you that last time you come back here asking for something.
Lyons: No thanks, Pop, that ain’t for me. I don’t want to be carrying nobody’s rubbish. I don’t want to be punchin’ nobody’s time clock.
Troy: What’s the matter, you too good to be carrying people’s rubbish? Where you think that $10 you talking about comes from?
…
Lyons: You got your way of dealing with the world, I got mine. The only thing that matters to me is the music.
Troy: Yeah, I can see that. Don’t matter how you gonna eat, don’t matter where your next dollar comin’ from. Yeah, you tellin’ the truth there.
Lyons: I know I gotta eat. But I gotta live too. I need something that’s gonna help me get out of bed in the morning. Something to make me feel like I belong in the world. I don’t bother nobody. I just stay with my music 'cause that’s the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise, there ain’t no telling what I might do. I don’t come by critizing you and how you live. I just come by to ask you for tewn dollars. I don’t want to hear all that about how I live.
Troy: Boy, your mama did a hell of a job rasining you.
Lyons: You can’t change me, Pop. I’m 34 years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up. I come by to see you and ask for ten dollars and you want to talk about how I was raised? You don’t know nothing about how I was raised.
…
Rose: Now I hit the numberssometimes…that makes up for it. It always come in handy when I do hit. I don’t hear you complaining then.
Troy: I ain’t complaining now. I just say it’s foolish. Trying to guess out of six hundred ways which way the number gonna come. If I had all the money niggers — these Negroes — throw away on numbers for one week—just one week—I’d be a rich man.
…
Troy: Don’t nobody wanna be locked up, Rose. What you wanna lock him up for? Man go over there and fight the war messin’ around with them Japs, get half his head blown off and they give him a lousy three thousand dollars. And I had to swoop down on that…That’s the only way I got a roof over my head ’cause of that metal plate.
Rse: Ain’t no sense you blaming yourself for nothing. Gabe wasn’t in no condition to manage that money. You done what was right by him. Can’t nobody say you ain’t done what was right by him. Look how long you took care of him till he wanted to have his own place and moved over there with Miss Pearl.
Troy: That ain’t what I’m saying, woman! I’m just stating the facts. If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head…I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I’m fifty-three years old! Now see if you can understand that!!
…
Cory: I’m gonna be working weekends.
Troy: You damn right you are! And ain’t no need for nobody coming around here to talk to me about signing nothing.
Cory: Hey, Pop…you can’t do that. He’s coming all the way from North Carolina.
Troy: I don’t care where he coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football no way. You go on and get your book- learning so you can work yourself up in that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you. You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides hauling people’s garbage.
…
Cory: Hey pa!
Troy: Hmm?
Cory: Can I ask you a question? How come you ain’t never liked me?
Troy: Like you? What law is there sayin’ I got to like you?
Cory: None.
Troy: All right then. Don’t you eat every day? Answer me when I talk to you! Don’t you eat every day?
Cory: Yeah…
Troy: As long as you’re in my house you put a “Sir” on the end of it when you talk to me.
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You eat every day?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You got a roof over you head?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Got clothes on your back?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Why you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause of you?
Troy: Hell, I know it’s 'cause of me. But why do you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause you like me?
Troy: Like you? I go out of here every morning bust my butt putting up with them crackers every day ’cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house sleep your behind on my bedclothes fill you belly up with my food ’cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ’cause I like you! ’Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! Let’s get this straight right here before it go along any further…I ain’t got to like you. Mr. Rand don’t give me my money come payday ’cause he likes me. He gives me ’cause he owe me. I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life! Me and your mama worked that out between us. And liking your black ass wasn’t part of the bargain. Don’t you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you. You understand what I’m saying, boy?
Cory: Yes sir.
…
Rose: Why don’t you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain’t no harm in that. He’s just trying to be like you with the sports.
Troy: I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a thing else from my life.
…
Troy: Rose, I ain’t got time for that. He’s alive. He’s healthy. He’s got to make his own way. I made mine. Ain’t nobody gonna hold his hand when he get out there in that world.
Rose: Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world’s changing around you and you can’t even see it.
…
Troy: Woman, I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain’t got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning find my lunch on the table. I go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday. That’s all I got, Rose. That’s all I got to give. I can’t give nothing else!
…
Bono: Your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He gonna be the first colored driver. Ain’t got to do nothin’ but sit up there and read the paper, like them white fellas.
Lyons: Hey, Pop, if you knew how to read, you’d be all right.
Bono: Nah, nah. You mean if the nigger knew how to drive, he’d be all right.Been fighting with them people about driving and ain’t even got a license.
…
Bono [to Troy and Lyons]: Just moving on through. Searching out the New Land.That’s what the old folks used to call it. See a fella moving around from place to place, woman to woman, they call it, Searching out the New Land…They walk out their front door and take off down one road or another and just keep on walkin’. Just keep on walking till they come to something else. Ain’t you never heard of nobody having the walking blues? Now, that’s what you call it when you just take off like that.
…
Troy [of his father]: When he turned to face me, I knew why the devil never come and get him 'cause he was the devil himself. I don’t know what happened. I woke up, laying there by the creek, and Blue, this old dog we had, he was licking my face. Both my eyes were swoll shut. I thought I was blind, I couldn’t see nothing. I just laid there and cried. And I didn’t know what I was gonna do. But I knew the time had come for me to leave my daddy’s house. Suddenly, the world got big, and it was a long time before I could cut it down to where I could handle it. Part of that cutting down was where I got to the place where I could feel him kicking in my blood, and I knew the only thing that separated us was a matter of a few years.I hope he’s dead. I hope he found some peace.
…
Troy: Now you tell me who you ever heard of gonna pull their own teeth with a pair of rusty pliers?
Bono: They’re old folks. My granddaddy used to pull his teeth with pliers. They ain’t had no dentists for colored folk back then.
Troy: Well, get clean pliers. You understand? Clean pliers.
…
Cory: I don’t see why Mama want a fence around the yard noways.
Troy: Damn if I know either. What the hell she keeping out with it? She ain’t got nothing nobody want.
Bono: Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.
…
Troy: I’m talking, woman, let me talk. I’m trying to find a way to tell you I’m gonna be a daddy. I’m gonna be somebody’s daddy.
Rose: Troy you’re not telling me this? You’re gonna be…what?
Troy: Rose…now…see…
Rose: You telling me you gonna be somebody’s daddy? You telling your wife this? I have to wait eighteen years to hear something like this.
…
Rose [to Troy]: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her.
…
Rose [to Troy]: We’re not talking about baseball! We’re talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman and then bring it home to me. That’s what we’re talking about. We ain’t talking about no baseball!!
Troy: Rose, you’re not listening to me. I’m trying the best I can to explain it to you. It’s not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years.
Rose: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me? Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams . . . and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom.
…
Troy [to Cory after Cory shoves him against the fence for hurting Rose]: All right. That’s strike two. You stay away from around me, boy. Don’t you strike out. You living with a full count. DON’T YOU STRIKE OUT!
…
Rose: Troy that was the hospital. Alberta had the baby.
Troy: What she have? What is it?
Rose: It’s a girl.
Troy: I better get on down to the hospital to see her.
Rose: Troy…
Troy: Rose I got to go see her now. That’s only right…what’s the matter…the baby’s all right, ain’t it?
Rose: Alberta died having the baby.
…
Troy [aloud to himself]: All right, Mr. Death. I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around this yard, see? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. You stay over there till you’re ready for me, then you come on. Bring your army, bring your sickle, bring your wrestling clothes. I ain’t gonna fall down on my vigilance this time. You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more. When you ready for me, when the top of your list say Troy Maxson, then you come on up and knock on the front door. Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do with this. This between you and me. Man to man! You stay on the other side of that fence till you ready for me!
…
Troy: She’s my daughter, Rose. My own flesh and blood. I can’t deny her no more than I can deny them boys. You and them boys is my family. You and them and this child is all I got in the world. So I guess what I’m saying is I’d appreciate it if you’d help me take care of her.
Rose: Okay, Troy you’re right. I’ll take care of your baby for you ’cause like you say she’s innocent…and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.
…
Troy: I guess you got someplace to sleep and something to put in your belly. You got that, huh? You got that? That’s what you need. You got that, huh?
Cory: You don’t know what I got. You ain’t got to worry about what I got.
Troy: You right! You one hundred percent right! I done spent the last seventeen years worrying about what you got. Now it’s your turn, see? I’ll tell you what to do. You grown…we done established that. You a man. Now, let’s see you act like one. Turn your behind around and walk out this yard. And when you get out there in the alley . . . you can forget about this house. See? ’Cause this is my house. You go on and be a man and get your own house. You can forget about this. ’Cause this is mine. You go on and get yours ’cause I’m through with doing for you.
…
Cory: Tell Mama I’ll be back for my things.
Troy: They’ll be on the other side of that fence!
…
Rose [to Cory, now a Marine, six years later]: Ain’t too much changed. He still got that piece of rag tied to that tree. He was out here swinging that bat. I was just ready to go back in the house. He swung that bat and then he just fell over. Seem like he swung it and stood there with this grin on his face and then he just fell over. They carried him on down to the hospital but I knew there wasn’t no need…
…
Rose [to Cory]: Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t, and at the same time, he wanted you to be everything he was.
…
Rose [to Cory]: When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. But I wanted a house that I could sing in, and that’s what your daddy gave me. I didn’t know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn’t hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn’t have to live it like that. But that’s what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it.[/b]