![]() Realizing that he is the baby's father, he announces to a skeptical Father that he intends to marry Sarah. Some time later, Coalhouse Walker arrives at the house in search of Sarah, driving a new model T Ford and acting in a brash manner unlike the subservient attitude expected of the African American community at the time. When she learns that the police intend to charge Sarah with child abandonment and attempted murder, Mother ( Mary Steenburgen) intervenes and takes Sarah and her child into the home, despite Father's objections. The child's mother, an unmarried washerwoman named Sarah ( Debbie Allen), is discovered, and brought to their home. Their passive, sheltered existence is disturbed when an abandoned African American baby is found in their garden. The family's Father ( James Olson) owns a factory, where his wife's Younger Brother ( Brad Dourif) is employed as a fireworks maker. Meanwhile, an unnamed upper class family resides in a comfortable suburban home in New Rochelle. Thaw becomes convinced White has corrupted Evelyn and humiliated him, and publicly shoots White, killing him. The model for the statue is Evelyn Nesbit ( Elizabeth McGovern), a former chorus girl who is now Thaw's wife. The millionaire industrialist Harry Kendall Thaw ( Robert Joy), who makes a scene when White's latest creation, a nude statue on the roof of Madison Square Garden, is unveiled. The newsreel is accompanied by ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker, Jr. ![]() I wasn't born when it first came out, but it feels like it's aged amazingly well.The film begins with a newsreel montage, depicting celebrities of the turn of the 20th century such as Harry Houdini, Theodore Roosevelt and the architect Stanford White ( Norman Mailer), as well as life in New York City. I don't doubt that some of it didn't click for people at the time, but I'd highly suggest a revisiting. The whole movie was far more of an effect than I had expected, even being a huge fan of the director beforehand. There's even Brad Dourif as a shockingly prescient simp character. There's vigilante justice after the law fails, for both a white man's benefit and to a black man's detriment. There are cops trying to "calm everyone down," which inevitably means telling the offended black character to relax, shown as obviously morally repugnant. The most you can say about someone is that they're stupid, but - in this movie - being intelligent isn't even enough to guarantee survival.Īnd how it handles race, and shows its characters handling race, feels very ahead of its time for 1981. He does so much, to let you know so many things about the internal lives of his characters (and this one has SO many of them), with so little screen time - emotional cinematic efficiency is the only way I can describe it - and they're all so complex, with very few obvious Black Hat villains. I love Milos Forman, but even I could not have predicted how much I'd love this movie. However, if you haven't seen a movie in a very long time and are re-discovering it then exceptions may be made. Keeping this sub's special character means sharing the experience of seeing a movie the first time.Only post movies that you have seen for the FIRST time. Check if your movie has already been posted before submitting.Ħ.Check if your movie has already been posted before submitting. You can make your title whatever you want, as long as it contains a) the name of the movie you watched b) the year it was released.ĥ.Put your movie name and year in the title. Tag your posts as "SPOILER" if your movie contains a "surprise ending," plot twist, etc.Ĥ.Movies from 2010, to be clear, are allowed, however, but anything from 2011, 2012, etc. Only post movies that came out 10 or more years ago.Racism, sexism, inciting violence, personal attacks, hate speech, etc.Remember that the whole point of the sub is to have a conversation, so don't forget to reply to the commenters! Rules IWAOM is a place to talk about old movies you watched for the first time as if they just came out.
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