Themes: Man's Best Friend, Social Injustice, Race Relations
Main Cast: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks, Carmen Mathews, Taj Mahal
Release Year: 1972
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Martin Ritt's big-screen adaptation of William H. Armstrong's Newberry Award winning novel, Sounder stars Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, and Kevin Hooks as a black family struggling through life in depression-era Louisiana. The Morgan family is poor, but close. Young son David (Hooks) enjoys hunting with his father Nathan (Paul Winfield) and his trusted dog Sounder. Eventually, they fall on such rough times that Nathan steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, but he is arrested and sentenced to a work camp. Mother Rebecca (Tyson) realizes that David is now responsible for taking care of the family. He sets out to locate where his father is being held, and becomes involved in a school for black children where he learns facts that give him a new level of self-esteem. Sounder was nominated for a variety of Academy Awards, including Best Picture. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Martin Ritt -- who was blacklisted in the 1950s for his association with the Communist Party -- specializes in intimate, earthy southern dramas (Murphy's Romance, Norma Rae, Hud), and Sounder is one of his best works. Taj Mahal's sparse blues score combines with John A. Alonzo's stirring cinematography to create the movie's palpable sense of mood and setting (shot on location in Louisiana). Despite the incessantly arrogant prejudice of most of the film's white characters, the family's solidarity in the face of intimidating odds -- poverty, racism, injustice -- gives the movie a humanistic, optimistic center. The message that familial support, education, and inter-racial familiarity will provide the means to escape from oppression clearly struck a chord with early-1970s audiences. Three excellent performances infuse the film with great heart and believability: Cicely Tyson as the family matriarch, Paul Winfield as the imprisoned father, and Kevin Hooks as the elder son who is encouraged to dream of escape. Sounder was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay (Lonne Elder III), Actor (Winfield) and Actress (Tyson). ~ Dan Jardine, All Movie Guide
Janet MacLachlan - Camille Johnson; Ted Airhart - Mr. Perkins; William T. Bennett - Judge; Carmen Best; James Best - Sheriff Young; Spencer Bradford - Clarence; Inez Durham - Clerk; Eric Hooks - Earl Morgan; Yvonne Jarrell - Josie Mae Morgan; Rev. Thomas N. Phillips - Preacher; Sylvia "Kuumba" Williams - Harriet; Myrl Sharkey - Mrs. Clay
Credit
Nedra Watt - Costume Designer, Charles C. Washburn - First Assistant Director, Martin Ritt - Director, Sid Levin - Editor, Taj Mahal - Composer (Music Score), Taj Mahal - Songwriter, Walter Scott Herndon - Production Designer, Peter W. Wooley - Production Designer, John A. Alonzo - Cinematographer, Robert B. Radnitz - Producer, Tom Overton - Sound/Sound Designer, Lonne Elder III - Screenwriter, William H. Armstrong - Book Author
The most distinct difference between the film and the book is that the film established names for the characters, which the book did not.
The white people in the book are more truculent, cruel and racist than those in the film.
Both Sounder and his master's father are more horribly injured in the book than in the movie.
Realistic casting of minor parts
A notable aspect of casting in the film is that the Minister is played by an actual Minister and the Judge is played by an actual Judge.
New version
In 2003, ABC's Wonderful World of Disney aired a new film adaptation, reuniting two actors from the original. Kevin Hooks directed and Paul Winfield played the role of the teacher. (Winfield and Hooks played father and son, respectively, in the original version.)
