 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Nightjohn
|
 |
|
Charles Burnett's Nightjohn is a stirring film. This historical drama about black slavery, a telemovie made for Disney, has all the conventional stateliness and restraint of a William Wyler film. But how utterly compelling it is – subtle, complexly shaded and novelistic in the best sense of the term. A central scene, in which the young heroine (Allison Johns) sheds a private, secret tear in close-up as she gazes at the words in a hymnbook and understands them for the first time ("I be reading!"), can seem like the most powerful argument for classical narrative – and a radically humanist politics – offered by contemporary cinema. MORE Burnett: The Blues, Killer of Sheep, My Brother’s Wedding © Adrian Martin March 1997 |
