Richard Wright

(On Cable TV, February 2021) One of the most vexing questions for film noir fans is why the genre, despite its strong urban roots, featured almost no black characters: even film historians once had to dig an embarrassingly long time to find even the odd exceptions. Native Son is one of those exceptions, and it affirms the rule almost by itself — While the film is an adaptation of a novel by American author Richard Wright (who also co-wrote the screenplay and starred as its protagonist despite being about twice too old), it ended up being produced in Argentina by French director Pierre Chenal. In other words, the filmmakers had to leave the US to portray a very American tale of racism and noir nihilism. While there are constant elements of social drama here, it’s difficult to interpret the main narrative as anything but pure dark undiluted noir: The story gets going when a black young man hired as a chauffeur to a wealthy white woman gets involved with her and—as befit the genre—lets a series of mistakes escalate in the accidental death of his white employer, bringing down the city’s police force on him. That’s already grim, but then it gets much, much worse as more things go wrong. You won’t be surprised at how the film ends, but so it goes when the fatalism of film noir grinds down even its likable protagonists. Age aside, Wright’s performance is raw to the point of being showy — he’s obviously not a trained actor and there are no other strong performers to hold him aloft when he slips. The low-budget production is not spectacular, although Argentine-passing-as-Chicago is not as big of a problem as you’d think. While Native Son’s technical credentials won’t wow anyone, the film itself is still remarkable: it’s an exemplary film noir in concept, and the fact that it features a black protagonist hounded by white police force gives it an impact that sadly remains intact. The story behind the film’s censorship and recent restoration doesn’t reflect all that well on its lasting impact on cultural history, but it does reaffirm that we’re living in an amazing age for cinephiles, when such fascinating films are once again made widely available in their best possible shape.