MovieChat Forums > Tomorrow (1992) Discussion > black complected

black complected

posted 18 years ago by 2jdv
10 replies | jump to latest

In the interview with Robert Duvall and Horton Foote, the latter mentions that in the short story Sarah is "black complected." I haven't read the story, but if she is black, that puts a whole 'nuther spin on this. Her brothers coming to get the boy then takes on an entirely different connotation. The entire film would have had a quite different meaning if she had been cast as black. Indeed, Fentry's love of her and the boy, and his indifference to the fact that they are black, would give the story a much richer complexity, and more in keeping with Faulkner as a whole. What a shame that Foote notes this contradiction and no one asked him to explain why he made her white.

[–] heynow123 18 years ago

I'm thinking for that day and age, it might have been deemed to have been too risky to do that?

That would have been awesome if they chose a black girl instead. Remake, anyone?

[–] bijou-2 17 years ago

Race too risky a subject in 1972? Think again.

[–] joelcairo1941 17 years ago

I think this bit of information is a good excuse for a remake of this lovely movie. I agree that a Black woman and mixed-race child would add layers to the story, but Duvall's Fentry is in no way diminished by Foote's amendment to the Faulkner story.

[–] LatigoMeans 17 years ago

Remarkable.
After she had given birth I was thinking what a spin it would have been if the baby was black.

I'm not sure if it would, or could, have improved this wonderful story. Additional layer, yes indeed, but it still is a human story more than anything else.

~LjM
Step on it! And don't spare the atoms!

[–] ScreenwriterVA 8 years ago

If the child had been black, that could have been why his girlfriend's father killed him.

[–] ancatdoh 16 years ago

"I'm thinking for that day and age, it might have been deemed to have been too risky to do that?"

Nahh--Captain Kirk smooched Lt Uhura in Star Trek on NBC and nailed a green babe.

[–] cmashieldscapting 8 years ago

So if the baby in the story was mixed-race, did Fentry pass him off to his father as his own child, as in the movie? Also it would make for additional irony having a mixed-race boy named after two Confederate generals though certainly such things were not unheard-of.

Also if the mother and her brothers were black and the baby black or mixed-race, would they have the ability to approach a sheriff or judge for legal custody of the child? Didn't blacks have few to no rights and if a white person said something was his it was "finders keepers"?

[–] valerieindashadowgallery 8 years ago

If the baby's father was a white man and said that the black uncles should have custody of him, the sheriff would have agreed.

[–] cmashieldscapting 8 years ago

That is understandable, also that regardless of color the uncles would want their sister's child. Probably the screenwriter made everyone white so as not to make it look as if a child taken from whites and raised by blacks would necessarily turn out bad, which would be un-PC even now let alone 45 years ago.

[–] zwot 8 years ago

I'm guessing the screenwriter made the Sarah Eubanks character white to keep the focus on the particular story he wanted to tell. If she was black, the interracial relationship would have overshadowed everything else. The anti-miscegenation laws in Mississippi and the rest of the South were only repealed in 1967. It was still very much a contentious issue when this film was made and likely would've completely distracted the audience.