Cinema · A way to begin
Cry, the Beloved Country
Zoltan Korda · 1952
Synopsis
In the mid-1940s, the Reverend Stephen Kumalo leaves his village for Johannesburg, where he wants to see his sick sister again and find his son Absalom, who no longer sends news. Guided by a young city priest, the Reverend Msimangu, he learns that his sister, whose husband is in prison, lives by prostitution, and discovers a city where the pass laws crush the Black people who have come there to work. On the trail of his son, he learns that a burglary has cost the life of Arthur Jarvis, a white man who defended the cause of Black people.
Context
The film adapts Alan Paton's novel, who wrote the screenplay with John Howard Lawson, blacklisted and uncredited. It was the first major film shot in South Africa, the interiors being made at Shepperton studios; to get through the controls, Canada Lee and Sidney Poitier were presented as Korda's contracted servants. Classified in Britain in October 1951, it opened in New York in January 1952, then in London in April; it was Canada Lee's last film.
Who it is for
A black-and-white British film, in English, about 1 h 45; a faithful adaptation that can be followed without knowing the novel.
Prizes and reception
Bronze Bear at the Berlin festival in 1952; Bosley Crowther, in the New York Times, praised its qualities.
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