Evocative Black Panthers drama "Night Catches Us" took director 11 years to make
“Night Catches Us” director Tanya Hamilton. ( Magnolia Pictures ) In Tanya Hamilton’s impressively atmospheric debut, “Night Catches Us,” Marcus returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood from a long absence. Played by Anthony Mackie, the slim, confident Marcus is handsome, laconic, uncowed. It is 1976, the Bicentennial summer, and presidential candidate Jimmy Carter’s voice floats from radios and televisions, pledging to give government back to the people. The Philly neighborhood Marcus returns to for his father’s funeral is urban but also verdant. The Great Migration of blacks from the South never completely shook off the dust of the rural in cities like Chicago and Cleveland, Baltimore and Philly. The film revels in photos and comic books, and black-and-white newsreel images of young black people wearing “Free Huey” buttons. Their fist pump in the “Black Power” salute. Young black men behind sunglasses, wearing leather jackets, their arms crossed over their chests, look like they have a purpose, a role in hoisting, serving and protecting their community. There is hope and energy in these images. But “Night Catches Us,” which stars Mackie and Kerry Washington as old comrades reunited, is no mere rose-colored look at the Black Panthers. Marcus’ former colleagues send a cocky emissary with a warning. “You not even going to see it coming, snitch; one day the light is going to go out.” “Night Catches Us” has mystery, an air of hushed menace and much lovingly observed life. “I wrote this thing in 1999,” writer-director Hamilton said, sitting in a quiet back room off Park City’s Main Street during last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered. Earlier, she had sat on a panel. The group was gathered to talk about collaboration, but Hamilton was also notable for her tenacity. “I was thinking 10, 11 years was a long time, but there was a dude on the panel that had started his film in 1998,” the 42-year-old said with a quiet laugh. “I didn’t feel so alone.” That other director was Derek Cianfrance, whose lauded romantic drama, “Blue Valentine,” opened at the Mayan recently. Not bad company to be in. And artistically the films have qualities in common: an abiding fondness for the weight of ambient sounds and music, and love of the beautifully composed and meditative shot. Both also are anchored by the vigorous and vulnerable performances of their leads. As is the way with moviemaking and indie production in particular, it took a while for Hamilton and her producers to assemble the cast we see on screen. “There were other actors attached to this project for a long time,” Hamilton said. “But Mackie knew about it. And I was a fan of his for a long time. When the world shifted we were lucky he was available.” Indeed, Mackie, who played Sgt. Sanborn in “The Hurt Locker,” brings viewers toward him with the tug of understated truth. “He’s such an everyman. That’s the great beauty of him as an actor. There’s a simple realness to his performance. He has that great balance, he’s incredibly good-looking, but he can also look like anything he wants,” said Hamilton. “Same thing with Kerry. She’s glamorous and beautiful, yet she reminds me of all the black girls I went to high school with. It’s an interesting quality the two of them have.” As a child, Hamilton came from Jamaica with her mother to Maryland. They settled, along with her brother, in Silver Spring. Washington’s character, Patricia, was inspired by her mother’s dear friend, lawyer Carol Lawson-Green, who died while the movie was in prep. “She was political in the way Pat is,” Hamilton recalled. “She was a lawyer for battered women.” And in 1965, Lawson-Green was among a group of student civil-rights demonstrators who briefly occupied the White House. When she Lawson-Green died, Hamilton, a collector of images, received a trove of her photos. And those infused the feel of the movie. “From my cousin, I got a box of her photos,” Hamilton said. “I tried to put them in this book (for the production designer). Pictures from the 1970s, like a dude sitting in bed with a gun on his lap. Two dudes with giant ‘fros and dashikis from 1974.” And “Night Catches Us” exhibits a terrific awareness of the fashion and ephemera that anchor humans to our fluid culture, our kin, this nation. The movie’s thoughtful grace recalls moments in Charles Burnett’s more magically realist gem, “To Sleep With Anger.” For a first film, it moves with impressive certainty. But then, 11 years of living with a project can do that to a writer-director. For her sophomore film, Hamilton has been nurturing a story about a black Indian tribe and a casino. “It’ll be interesting to see if I can get it off the ground,” she said over the phone last week. “If I can get it made, I don’t think anyone will have anything like it.” It seems so obvious. The best honor that moviegoers can bestow on a hard-fought debut is a demand to see what that writer-director will do next. Sometimes, next is a long time coming. Let’s hope not. Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or [email protected]; also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer -- http://www.denverpost.com/movies/ci_17151723%3E Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. 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