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| Shirley Knight and Al Freeman Jr. in Dutchman |
Dutchman, Amiri Baraka's parable about race and sex, made it from stage to screen in admirable fashion. without the usual strained attempts to "open it up" with extraneous scenes. Granted, it comes in at just under an hour, too long for a short film and too short for a feature, but it's so tightly staged and so intensely acted that it doesn't need to be condensed or expanded. Shirley Knight's flamboyant performance in the role of Lula, the minidressed woman who comes on to an initially reserved Black man on the subway, her a best actress award at the Venice Film Festival, though some think she's overacting -- that her performance would have worked on the stage but is pitched too high for the camera. I see the point, but the role is a necessary foil to Al Freeman Jr.'s contained and wary Clay, who has to wait for her to pull the trigger that makes him explode, which he does superbly. It's the type of play and film that from title to denouement demands exegesis, but I leave that to others.
