Sounder (1972)

What’s the Story?

Set during the depression, SOUNDER follows the story of the Morgan family, black sharecroppers in rural Louisiana. Hunting late at night, David Lee (Kevin Hooks) and his father (Paul Winfield) fail to bring home some desperately needed meat. But a day later, David's mother, Rebecca (Cicely Tyson), shakes him and his younger sister and brother awake to the smell of frying ham. In short order, the sheriff and a landowner show up to arrest dad Nathan for smokehouse burglary. When Rebecca leaves to learn her husband's fate, David shoulders the tasks of an adult. After Nathan is sentenced to a year of hard labor, Rebecca and David find out he's been sent far away. Rebecca sends David off to contact him and, on the way, David meets a trailblazing teacher in an all-black school and determines to attend. When Nathan comes home lamed, he supports David's wish, but it takes the family -- and David himself -- some time to realize that this is the best course for all of them.

Is It Any Good?

Without sugar-coating the hard lives of black Louisiana sharecroppers, the Morgan family's enduring ties to each other set alight this film depicting the poverty, desperation, and bigotry of the rural South during the Great Depression. Beautifully enhanced by the country blues of Lightnin' Hopkins and the hollers and rough-hewn cakewalks of the inimitable Taj Mahal (who appears as Ike), Sounder stands out as an honest celebration of a strong family's triumph over poverty and racism. The transformation of svelte, elegant Cicely Tyson into the ragged, destitute Rebecca epitomizes the sharp contrast between the life most Americans lead and the back-breaking, desperate circumstances the Morgan family transcends.

Winfield and Tyson skillfully balance between the proud flash of individuality, and the drab obsequious shell society demands. In support, a range of actors with real -- if largely unknown -- faces adds to the film's authentic feel, including Kevin Hooks as a convincing David, whose attachment to his father is palpable. It takes an argument before Nathan can acknowledge that love and before David realizes that it is out of an equal love that his father urges him toward the faraway school. The other children onscreen are frequently wooden, a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent production. The hard, hot light of the rural South floods its scenes, revealing the depths of feeling which saw some families through such trials.