Richard Wright wanted to make movies. After publishing his book Native Son in 1940, he yearned to see his words on the big screen, but his film couldn’t really be made at the time due to Hollywood codes and their blatant censorship of Black stories. He was either turned down by big studios or given insulting offers that stripped his novel of its importance, like replacing the Black lead with a “minority white” character. Eventually, he grew tired of American politics, realizing a Black man like himself would never have his voice valued and heard, and moved to Paris.
It was there that Wright met Pierre Chenal, a French director with a knack for the noir, who wanted to adapt Native Son. After a handful of blocks (both Italy and France would not give Chenal production permits to make the film), the pair found themselves in Argentina, and the screen adaptation of the film began.
Native Son is a shocking piece of literature, so Chenal’s noir background seemed like a fit for the adaptation. Wright’s story is about Bigger Thomas, a Black man who read and dreams about machines and planes, but due to the color of his skin, he has to settle and finds a job as a chauffeur with a wealthy “liberal” white family. One evening, the daughter (Wallace) and her Communist boyfriend force Bigger to take them to a Black club, and the night continues to spiral downwards, ending with Bigger accidentally murdering the daughter out of fear.
In the film, Wright plays Bigger, who was 40 to the character’s 20, and it’s the first of many stilted directional choices that feel amiss. The actors’ performances don’t feel natural, likely due to the language barrier between the lead cast, supporting cast (played by local Afro-Latino actors), and the director. The film’s noir touches at times clash with the message, heightening thrills when the audience should be feeling empathy for Bigger.
The film is not without its inspired moments, though. Towards the end during Bigger’s big confession, a Wizard of Oz-style dream sequence plays out, where Bigger walks through a cotton field toward his childhood home to meet with his deceased father, who then disturbingly morphs into the vile Detective Britten (Cane). His hazy dream emphasizes that he could never escape the fate of his father, who was also killed by white men at a young age. Except in the case of Bigger, the American “justice” system is sentencing him to death.
But in 1951, Native Son was gutted. Slashed to bits by censors, the film was a shell of what it was supposed to be upon release, subtracting all nuance from the story and Bigger’s motivations. While the finished, fully restored product is clunky, it still has the same meat of the novel. Without it, it’s an exploitive film about a Black man killing a white woman.
Native Son is not polished, but its place in cinema history is significant. It further emphasizes how far Hollywood still has to go before Black stories are given the same treatment as white stories.
The restored Native Son is available now as a virtual cinema release.
This article appears in October 9 • 2020.