Along with the rest of the cast. All giving Career performances.
And a huge surprise for me.
Saw it first shortly after it came out and was, frankly, unimpressed. This was the sixties and I was a teen radical and the whole movie just seemed pasty and whiny and slow and superficial and made no sense. A Fifties-ish mentality clashing wildly with our anti-racism militancy.
Well OPPS and take my own advice - see the movie on the screen, not the one colored by your expectations.
I'm delighted that, when recently broadcast on TCM, I decided to record and archive it as An Important Movie.
Turns out this time I saw a movie that is infinitely more complex than the simple story I remembered and, rather than being dated, treats its theme of racism in a style that is as fresh and intimate today as it may have been in 1965.
The key is the subtlety of of the movie's cinematography, its use of light and dark to evoke layers of the Light and Darkness of the human soul, telling a parallel, broader story in counterpoint to the simple love story portrayed by Poitier and Hartman, both stories twined as a totally engaging dance.
There are other, symbolic devices in addition to light and dark; small things that, like plays on expectations, reinforce that dance. Part of the fun is watching them play out.
And, though I remembered a negative ending, based on race, this time I recognized its much more positive ending based on a lightly expressed 'Possibility': the last step of the dance leaving room for a future.
1965 was a year of strong contenders so I was delighted that Shelly Winters received an Oscar for her performance but, based on my updated perception, wish that the Academy had granted A Patch of Blue a nomination for Best Picture and Poitier Best Actor.
A World Class Movie.
P.S. OK, one example device: the Mustang parked on the street as Poitier rushes out of his apartment house at the end. Just a dim, shadowy rear-end glimpse but still an evocation of individualism, freedom and joy that that car, specifically that car, still represents - even to those who weren't teenagers in the '60s.
And a huge surprise for me.
Saw it first shortly after it came out and was, frankly, unimpressed. This was the sixties and I was a teen radical and the whole movie just seemed pasty and whiny and slow and superficial and made no sense. A Fifties-ish mentality clashing wildly with our anti-racism militancy.
Well OPPS and take my own advice - see the movie on the screen, not the one colored by your expectations.
I'm delighted that, when recently broadcast on TCM, I decided to record and archive it as An Important Movie.
Turns out this time I saw a movie that is infinitely more complex than the simple story I remembered and, rather than being dated, treats its theme of racism in a style that is as fresh and intimate today as it may have been in 1965.
The key is the subtlety of of the movie's cinematography, its use of light and dark to evoke layers of the Light and Darkness of the human soul, telling a parallel, broader story in counterpoint to the simple love story portrayed by Poitier and Hartman, both stories twined as a totally engaging dance.
There are other, symbolic devices in addition to light and dark; small things that, like plays on expectations, reinforce that dance. Part of the fun is watching them play out.
And, though I remembered a negative ending, based on race, this time I recognized its much more positive ending based on a lightly expressed 'Possibility': the last step of the dance leaving room for a future.
1965 was a year of strong contenders so I was delighted that Shelly Winters received an Oscar for her performance but, based on my updated perception, wish that the Academy had granted A Patch of Blue a nomination for Best Picture and Poitier Best Actor.
A World Class Movie.
P.S. OK, one example device: the Mustang parked on the street as Poitier rushes out of his apartment house at the end. Just a dim, shadowy rear-end glimpse but still an evocation of individualism, freedom and joy that that car, specifically that car, still represents - even to those who weren't teenagers in the '60s.