Sounder (DVD)
APPROX. 104 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1972 - MPA RATING: G
" Full of the kind of details that can give you a good sense of what everday life was like for dirt-poor sharecroppers.
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Nathan Lee Morgan (Winfield) is a hard worker who, like so many others, just isn't seeing that work pay off. But that doesn't stop him from being demonstrably in love with his hard-working wife, Rebecca (Tyson), and being in love with life. Whether hunting with his oldest son, David Lee Morgan (Kevin Hooks) or interacting with his other children, Nathan comes across as a gentle man, a good man, a wise man--someone we'd think incapable of stealing from a neighbor. And yet, this is the Depression and desperate times make desperate men.
Parents should know that the most intense moments in the film come when the father is handcuffed and hauled away to prison, and Sounder runs after the truck. The deputy raises his shotgun and points it at the animal, who only takes an indirect hit because Nathan was able to kick the gun as he pulled the trigger. But as in the book the dog limps off and disappears for a time. Other than that single instance, this is a gentle film that is clearly idealistic. Aside from lawmen, one of whom whacks young David Lee on the hand as he's trying to ask working convicts if they've seen his father, all of the characters in this film are gentle sorts and good hearts. The well-off white woman (Carmen Mathews) who pays Rebecca to do her laundry not only has coins for the kids who deliver the basket, but books she loans David Lee, asking that he return to discuss them. And when David Lee walks half the state looking for his father, a teacher (Merle Sharkey) takes him under her wing.
If authority figures take a beating, it's a double knockdown, because just as there was little faith in those who ran the system during the Great Depression, there wasn't much love for those in power during the Sixties, when Armstrong wrote his novel. But the resistance is passive and any disdain for authority figures is as soft-spoken as everything else in this quiet and unassuming film.
Video:
This old film shows its age with substantial grain, though the colors still hold for the most part. It's presented in 2.35:1 widescreen.
Audio:
The audio is a slightly flat-sounding Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0, with no subtitles. But for a bargain-priced DVD, this one should sell well in the family market, and it's deserving of a wide audience.
Extras:
There are no bonus features.
Bottom Line:
Tyson and Winfield earned their Oscar nominations, but young Hooks is also quite good. Just don't go into this family fare thinking dog movie, or your kids may be disappointed. Tell them it's the story of a family who lived at a time when America was in trouble, and let them see the amount of work that these kids do, the respect they have for adults, and the privilege that school is for them. And if that isn't a message that hits home, then contemporary times have taken too big of a toll.
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