美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Native Son' Is Reborn, In 'Still Kind Of The Same America'（在线收听）

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In America's complicated history with race, sometimes the most revealing stories are told and retold in fiction. That's the case for Richard Wright's influential 1940 novel "Native Son." Its lead character, 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, dreams of a life beyond his impoverished neighborhood of maybe even becoming a pilot one day.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NATIVE SON")

ASHTON SANDERS: (As Bigger) I feel like a bird, you know? - in it and of it, flying high and above it.

GREENE: That's from a new film version of "Native Son" set in present day Chicago. It debuts on HBO this Saturday. And NPR's Mandalit del Barco has more.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NATIVE SON")

SANDERS: (As Bigger) Oh, s***.

SANAA LATHAN: (As Trudy) Big, it's over there. It's over there. It's over there.

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: As in the classic novel, the new "Native Son" movie begins with Bigger Thomas killing a huge rat in his house where he lives in Chicago with his siblings and their single mother.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NATIVE SON")

LATHAN: (As Trudy, yelling).

DEL BARCO: This time, the story of the young, black man is set in contemporary times. His troubles accelerate after he gets hired as a driver for a wealthy white family, the Daltons. Here he is meeting Mr. Dalton, who prides himself on being a liberal. He's played by Bill Camp.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NATIVE SON")

BILL CAMP: (As Henry) Your first name is Bigger.

SANDERS: (As Bigger) Yeah. My friends call me Big.

CAMP: (As Henry) Like Biggie.

SANDERS: (As Bigger) After Biggie Smalls, no.

CAMP: (As Henry) Good, seeing how Christopher Wallace came to a difficult end.

SANDERS: (As Bigger) (Laughter).

DEL BARCO: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks wrote the screenplay. And the adaptation was directed by artist Rashid Johnson. Ashton Sanders, who was in the Oscar-winning movie "Moonlight," plays Bigger. In this version, he sports green hair and a graffiti-covered leather jacket. On set, Sanders explained Bigger is into both punk music and Beethoven.

SANDERS: Along with the pressures of being a black man in this America, he's also dealing with the pressures of being this other other in America, being this Afro punk and dealing with his circumstances and his environment.

DEL BARCO: Bigger is tasked with driving Dalton's wild child daughter Mary, played by Margaret Qualley. Mary rebels against her privilege and impetuously tries to connect with Bigger, as in this scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NATIVE SON")

MARGARET QUALLEY: (As Mary) I live in such a affluenza bubble. I have no idea about, like, what black people actually think about what's going on in the world right now.

SANDERS: (As Bigger) Well, I'll be sure to mention that at our next black meeting.

(LAUGHTER)

DEL BARCO: Mary and her boyfriend Jan fashion themselves as political radicals. At the movie's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, writer Suzan-Lori Parks talked about how she updated their story.

SUZAN-LORI PARKS: In the original novel, Jan was a member of the Communist Party. So the Communist Party these days is not the same kind of party as it was back in the day. So immediately, I said, well, we've got some parties that are also relevant like Occupy or the anti-fascist movement that a young person might want to join in that might cause some consternation in the hearts and minds of progressive, wealthy parents.

DEL BARCO: There are a few other changes. In Wright's best-selling novel, Bigger was a rapist and a murderer portrayed as a victim more a product of his environment. That characterization has been controversial. Novelist James Baldwin once wrote a critique in his 1955 book "Notes Of A Native Son," Baldwin blasted Bigger's portrayal as stereotypical and unsympathetic. But "Native Son" remains popular. Over the years, it's been adapted for stage and made into a movie twice. Author Richard Wright starred as Bigger Thomas in the 1951 movie. Here he is doing his screen test.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICHARD WRIGHT: (As Bigger) It's funny the way the white folks treat us, ain't it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) It better be funny.

WRIGHT: (As Bigger) You know, I reckon the white folks is right because if I took up one of them planes in the air full of bombs, I'd just let two of them drop anywhere to see what would happen. Bloom, bloom, bloom.

(LAUGHTER)

DEL BARCO: The character Bigger Thomas still resonates, says Ashton Sanders, who portrays him in the HBO version.

SANDERS: It's always been rough for a black man living in America, you know? There's always pressures that are put on us with - you know, I feel like the black man walks around with an anxiety because of the way that America views him, the world views him, you know? And so yeah, it's still very relevant because this is still kind of the same America.

DEL BARCO: At his film's Sundance premiere, director Johnson explains why he thinks Richard Wright's book is timely.

RASHID JOHNSON: And his story "Native Son," however divisive, is an incredibly complicated telling of how we're to examine some aspects of the black psyche.

DEL BARCO: Rashid Johnson also examines the black psyche in his artwork, which has been shown at major museums and galleries around the world, like the David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. Just before he took off to direct "Native Son," he had an art opening there.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DEL BARCO: It was a packed house and featured live music, poetry, paintings and sculpture. His work explores cultural identity and race. He mixes media - shea butter, potted plants, stacks of books and vinyl records. Visitor Kidogo Kennedy pondered one of Johnson's recurring images - a square, black skull scribbled with big, swirly eyes.

KIDOGO KENNEDY: It reminds me. This is Bigger. That's who I'm looking at when I look at these grimaces and eyes that are bulging. I think of him. I think of "Native Son." I think of Bigger.

DEL BARCO: A few weeks later, Johnson was on location in Cleveland, shooting Native Son. Before the cameras rolled on one scene, he spray-painted that skull image on a brick wall.

(SOUNDBITE OF PAINT SPRAYING)

JOHNSON: That's a character that I've used that I call "Anxious Men." I just kind of put it in the background. But I think this film has quite a bit of moments of anxiety and alludes to the idea of anxiety and how it functions in our characters as well as in society as a whole.

DEL BARCO: On the wall of an alley, for another scene, Johnson spray-painted the word run; another theme he uses in his artwork.

JOHNSON: The idea of escape has been, thematically, a big part of my practice. And so it also lives in this film as far as how Bigger kind of is negotiating with what he's done. And the idea of kind of running and escape, I think, are also kind of strong themes that live in this film and in my work simultaneously.

DEL BARCO: So you put a little bit of yourself into the film, too.

JOHNSON: I think it's hard not to.

DEL BARCO: Johnson's 7-year-old son Julius makes a cameo in one scene. And gallery owner David Kordansky plays a record store owner in the film. Johnson has made short films for commissions at the Guggenheim and at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. But this is his debut as a feature film director.

JOHNSON: This dialogue - this is not easy, this part. I'd be free like a bird - in it and of it but flying high above it and looking down on all you Earth-bound suckers. Thank God I'm not acting in this movie.

DEL BARCO: Still, Rashid Johnson seems at ease directing the actors - quite the opposite of an anxious man.

JOHNSON: Cut.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Cut, cut. Cut.

JOHNSON: I'm happy if the camera's happy.

DEL BARCO: Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUKE ELLINGTON'S "IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD")