The Piano Lesson, screenplay by Virgil Williams and Malcolm Washington, is the screen adaptation of the August Wilson play of the same name. Washington also helms the film, making his feature directorial debut. The film is billed as a drama film; this is completely accurate to the experience of the film. But if you lay out the elements of the film and just viewed them editorially, it would not be unfathomable to give the film a horror film read as the film has a lot of elements of a horror film, and even scenes that capture that tone and feel. And I think that’s part of the power of the film, that it does blend these genres, using elements people are familiar with to explore the horrors that live within a family because of generational trauma they still carry with them.
The film has ghosts, the most obvious being the ghost of Sutter, who died a few weeks prior and whom Berniece (played by Danielle Deadwyler) sees shortly after Boy Willie (played by John David Washington) arrives looking to sell the piano so he can buy Sutter’s land. A piano we saw young Berniece and Boy Willie flee with from their childhood home on July 4th, years prior, before that home was burned by white villagers, including Sutter. Sutter is the surface ghost, but there are other ghosts (mostly metaphoric) because we quickly discover that the family is an imperfect cadence, incomplete and unfinished and waiting to be continued, which is all tied to the aforementioned generational trauma.
The film does a good job of giving context clues but drawing out the answers. These are characters who know each other and know why they have trouble being around one another, so it’s not something they always come out and say, rather, they talk around it but know what they mean, leaving it up to the audience to work in the blanks until they are filled. One of the ways it does this is through the arguments between Boy Willie and Berniece over selling the piano and the various conversations Boy Willie has on the subject matter with other characters, like with Doaker (played by Samuel L. Jackson). Some may find these conversations repetitive because they are on the same subject, but we always glean new info on their past. Also, these scenes are presented in conflict. Conflict is a great way to move exposition, and these scenes do it extremely well because it becomes clear why they are both fighting, and you can even see from their perspectives why they are right in their stance. Because the piano isn’t just a piano. And buying land, especially Sutter’s land, isn’t just buying land. It’s bigger. So, it’s no surprise that the conflict in The Piano Lesson essentially leads to an exorcism (I told you it could read as horror).
While you could tell that The Piano Lesson came from a play due to its intimacy and dialogue that at times positioned itself to be worked as a monologue because of its richness in character and flow, there is a distinct filmic quality to The Piano Lesson. It’s in the small moments that cut to flashbacks of Boy Willie and his father, to the moments of Berniece and her mother that build up their family, their history, and the ghosts they carry with them, making the moments in the third act all the more resonant.
The Piano Lesson is in select theatres now and will premiere on Netflix on November 22.
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