Review And Analysis Of The Movie Fences

Introduction

“When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave room for me.” That’s Rose, the wife of Troy Maxson, while she describes Troy to her son after he recently passed away. Troy was a hard man and an even harder father and husband. He ruled his household with an iron fist, but not in a Stalin-like way, but in his own way. He was a man who had to face his own father at age fourteen and was on the streets at an early age.

Becoming a robber, he got caught up in the wrong crowds and was eventually shot in the chest and survives. His life keeps spiraling down, because he also ends up in prison for 15 years. However, while in prison he befriends a man named Bono and he introduces Troy to the sport of baseball. Troy was naturally gifted and could have left prison and went professional, but he was already forty years old and the spotters weren’t interested.

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That’s when he meets Rose.

Film vs. Stage: Fences as a Theatrical Experience

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Knowing that the movie could also be made into a stage-play performance, you realize how close to a play it really is. There aren’t many scene changes throughout the movie. Roughly seventy percent of the movie is shot at the Maxson’s house and especially in the back yard. Characters come in and out of shots just like they would in a play and most camera angles are fixed on the center of dialogue.

The film begins with Troy and Bono coming home from a long day being garbage men. They head to the back porch and crack open their Friday Gin bottle and start talking about wrestling with Death. Rose hears about this and steps outside to poke fun at Troy for telling the same story differently every time. That is primarily what the film consists of: rich dialogue, a detailed story and the inside perspective of a poor African American household. Denzel Washington who plays Troy, I believe did a superb job. He’s quite the talented actor and one of my favorites, because of his cold tone and straightforwardness. However, in most of his movies he has, let’s say, thirty pages worth of lines to memorize. In Fences, I felt he definitely had the large dialogue role and had to of had three hundred page’s worth of lines to memorize.

Powerful Performances of Actors in Fences

Viola Davis, who plays Rose, also does a superb job acting and really balanced out Denzel’s strong character. “Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom.”

Turning Point in the Movie, Fences

After Troy confesses to Rose about having another child with a separate woman. This is a large turning point in the film, because in the first half you “feel bad” for Troy and what he has had to overcome to keep what he has at that point. He tells his son that they can’t go buy the two hundred dollar television, because the two hundred and sixty seven dollar roof will need to be getting fixed soon. That’s living hard. That’s raising his son with common sense and reason. However, no man is perfect and Troy Maxson also decides to cheat and “firm his backbone” with another woman. Shortly after Rose finishes her outcry to Troy, she leaves for the house and you learn they don’t speak to each other for months. When Rose finally musters the courage to speak to Troy again, he is his same stern and stubborn headed self. At this point, I started to resent Troy and look down on him as a terrible man to his wife and children. He had a troubled upbringing and past, but that doesn’t have to carry on forever. He also doesn’t have the right to go and sleep with another woman without being completely honest with his wife. However, Troy eventually gets promoted to “driver” and continues to provide for his family to the day he dies.

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, I found the movie to be quite moving and enlightening. Gaining a perspective on what it would be like to live in the city as a black family and the effects of cheating on your significant other can be like. My one major critique is that the belt buckle the son was wearing at the end, while dressed in his United States Marine Corps dress blues was not an NCO belt buckle and he was in fact a NCO. Being a prior Marine, I know that once you make NCO, you must switch the belt buckle from a plain brass plated one, to the brass plated with an eagle, globe and anchor on the front. I understand it’s a wardrobe critique, but it still stands. All in all, I really enjoyed the movie and can add it to one of my preferred Denzel movies collection.