banditteeth

This is yet another example of a typical Hollywood reunion picture. Hoke is what author Donald Bogle would call a "mammie". He essentially subjugates his own identity to that of the white matriarch, takes care of her, and is utterly desexualized. The thing about this "heartwarming" tale is that unity comes with HER deciding that black people are OK after all, not with any positive, forward moving action that Hoke takes. He just continues being the "magical", shaman type of mammie that accepts his position of subservience and continues on cheerfully. I am not saying that her character is deplorable. Latent racism was obviously (and still is) ever present, and she was socialized into that type of outlook by her surroundings. But this movie would have us accept the notion that this type of societal arrangement is somehow worthy of nostalgia. Hoke, and his counterparts in real life, undoubtedly did not enjoy second-class citizenship. They abhorred it. It is interesting that this film came out the same year as Do the Right Thing. That film is an honest, poetic, symbolic portrait of race relations. Driving Miss Daisy is a film designed to make the abuse of African Americans in this country more palatable to white people. Some things never change.

This film is a tremendous achievement. It is unbelievable to me that it is not being preserved and protected by those who have the power to do so. It absolutely SHOULD be available on video and it should be regularly mentioned in discussions of the great films of the "American New Wave". The previous commenter was absolutely right to compare it to a Cassavettes picture because it has a very similar feel, in that it seems not so much like a movie with a narrative, but just a "snippet" of a time, almost taken randomly for two hours. We get all kinds of wonderful experiences in that two hours, including 1960's Harlem, disillusioned youth run amok, gritty street fare, etc. Not to mention the music in the film(a fantastic jazz soundtrack). This is a very valuable film, and the fact that it is directed by a woman is significant, as this seems to be an under-appreciated voice in American cinema. Criterion, let's get it together and get this available for people to see. OK?