Sounder (1972)

Directed by Martin Ritt. Starring Kevin Hooks, Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, James Best, Carmen Matthews, Janet MacLachlan. [G]

The struggle of black sharecroppers in 1930s Louisiana is tactfully (and convincingly) depicted in this film version of William H. Armstrong’s Newberry Medal-winning children’s novel. The father (Winfield) of one such sharecropper family steals food for his hungry family and is sentenced to a year of hard labor in a work camp, leaving mother Tyson and son Hooks to labor and endure in his absence. The requirements for blinkered decency and emotional uplift narrows the scope to the range of hardscrabble fable, but the fine performances from Tyson and Winfield keep it on the stable track. The title is derived from the name of the Morgan family’s hunting dog, but the story isn’t about Sounder at all; indeed, the animal is mostly just used in a symbolic fashion, as he gets injured and disappears the day the father is carted away, his bark suddenly silenced. Not a “kids movie,” but a film with the sort of direct simplicity that speaks to kids, and the sort of one-dimensional characterizations that rob the picture of some of the nuance that might have made it a truly rewarding experience. Unorthodox bluesy score by musician Taj Mahal, who also has a small role in the film.

77/100