Nightjohn (film)

Nightjohn
Directed by	Charles Burnett
Produced by	David Manson (executive producer) Dennis Stuart Murphy (producer) John Landgraf (co-producer) Bill Cain (co-producer)
Written by	Gary Paulsen (book) Bill Cain (teleplay)
Starring	Beau Bridges Gerald Brown Gabriel Casseus Carl Lumbly
Editing by	Dorian Harris
Distributed by	Hallmark Entertainment
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Nightjohn is a story about a young slave girl who lives a hopeless life on a Southern plantation. Her job is to take care of the white family’s son as well as spitting tobacco on the roses to keeps bugs away. However, her life is changed when she is taught how to read by a fellow slave. The slave, John, says that learning to read is freedom because slavery is bounded by laws and deeds which the slaves cannot read. Her excitement towards reading gets her and her fellow slaves in trouble with their master, Mr. Waller, who prohibits any slave from being able to read. When trouble ensues, Sarny uses her ability to read against Mr. Waller and saves the lives of the rest of the slaves. She ends up being sold, but not before she shows her fellow slaves the letter ‘A’.

Plot

The movie begins with Sarny being born in the slave house. Their master, Clel Waller, then walks in and becomes angry when he realizes that it is a girl, instead of a boy. He states that a boy is worth a thousand dollars while a girl is worth nothing. Later when Sarny becomes a child, her mother is sold and is then taken care of by another slave, Dealey.

Sarny is then seen as being even older and starts working on the plantation. Back at the house, Outlaw tries to get Dealey to convince Clel, to give him a pass so he can marry a girl named Egypt from another plantation. Dealey is preparing a dress for Sarny, when goes to work at the house. Sarny is in charge of taking care of the Waller's young son, Homer, who is just a toddler and not 'housebroken' or potty trained.

The family and slaves then go to church, with Sarny standing in front with Homer. After the service, the Wallaces have guests over for lunch and Clel discusses the fact that his cotton is worth a lot of money. During the luncheon Calle, Clel’s wife, bring up that one of the slave boys wants to court a girl from another plantation. Clel immediately refuses stating that if they were to have a baby; it would give money to the wife’s plantation instead of his. Calle asks why things cannot just be about love. Hearing Clel’s rejection of the marriage, Sarny accidentally drops the plate of food, and is punished when Clel forces Calle to slap the girl. That night, Dealey tells Sarny to behave other she would have to do the hard labor out in the fields. Sarny replies that one say, she is going to own Mr. Waller. The next day, Calle tells Sarny to take a letter to the doctor’s place. On the way, she sees a slave trader, Tom, herding black slaves toward the Wallace household. At the doctor’s house, the doctor asks Sarny to take a letter to Calle, but to keep it a secret from Clel. He then gives Sarny a penny for her troubles. Back at the plantation, Tom is willing to sell a slave to Clel for 500 dollars. Clel then questions Tom about why he is willing to sell a slave worth 3000 for only 500, wondering if the slave is trouble. Clel then tells the slave to take off his shirt, revealing many scars from being whipped. Clel says that instead, he will buy the man off of Tom for only 50 dollars. That night, while asking for tobacco, the slave begins to talk to Sarny. He tells her that he can trade her letters for tobacco meaning he can teach her to read. He explains that she has to learn the alphabet before she learns to read and that each letter has a different meaning and shows her the letter ‘A’. She then introduces herself to the slave and the slave says that his name is ‘John’. Sarny then starts to read the letter ‘A’ in the letters between the doctor and Calle that she delivers.

The next morning, Outlaw is being punished because he had snuck out the previous night to see Egypt. As he is about to whip Outlaw, Arthur, Clel’s son asks him to stop because they are friends. Clel then explains to Arthur that the slaves were made to pick his cotton instead of being his friend and then proceeds to whip Outlaw. Sarny states that Clel watched everyone instead for the one person he needed to watch, which was his wife.

That night when the Wallace’s are having a party, Dealey walks in on John teaching Sarny the alphabet and is outrages. She questions John about the scars on his and he says that they were because he had tried to run away twice. The third time however, he successfully got away to the North but ended up coming back in order to teach slaves how to read. Dealey prohibits John from teaching Sarny to read because she does not want anyone to be whipped. John agrees but says that Dealey is teaching Sarny the wrong thing about being afraid. Sarny states that she will just learn how to read by herself.

Seeing Calle refuse an invitation from the doctor, Sarny suggests that Calle take both her and Homer along with her. She convinces Calle that she can watch the boy so no one would get mad. When the slaves come home from work , they find a cake on the table and accuses Sarny of stealing it. She states that Calle gave it to her but also that she did steal something. She reveals that she had stolen Homer’s alphabet blocks angering joe. joe says that he is willing to turn whoever is teaching letters in because Clel would kill them if he found out. He states that words are nothing which causes John to shout that words are freedom. He explains that the while folks keep the words to themselves and that if the slaves had words, they would be free. Outlaw then asks Joe what he knows about words which Joe responds by reciting the alphabet and then showing that it had cost him a finger. Later that night, John writes Sarny’s name in the dirt saying that the letters meant her. Sarny then questions John about read the paper, asking him how he knows that he is reading and not just making up stories.

The next day, Clel recruits everyone in his family to help with picking cotton from the fields because that is his source of income. He promises a feast to everyone if they are successful with the crop. While Sarny and Homer are playing, she stumbles across Clel’s record book and tried to read it. This makes her angry at John accusing him of not teaching her the entire alphabet. He explains to her that those are instead numbers and that he will teach her everything he knows. Dealey then agrees to learn as well. While they are at church, Sarny is overcome with tears because she is able to read the bible prompting the priest to baptize her.

After being baptized, it is revealed that Sarny had stolen the bible that Jeffery was supposed to take care of which gets him in trouble. She discovers that she had been lied to and that God was on the slave’s side. As Sarny begins to read more and more, the rest of the slaves reject it and tell her to stop. She begins to read a story in the Gazette newspaper about a slave revolt, capturing the other slaves’ attention. Sarney then tricks Homer into playing hide and seek so she can go back and read Clel’s record book. The Wallace plantation had a good crop of cotton this year and as promised, Clel throws a feast. The slaves use this opportunity to let Outlaw and Egypt get married.

It is discovered later that Egypt is pregnant and is forced to run away. John forges Clel’s signature for Outlaw and his wife so they can escape. In doing so, Jeffery comes in the slaves’ house to thank Outlaw for helping out with his father, but then discovers the stolen bible. Having his feeling hurt, Arthur questions the slaves about who had taken the bible and Dealey takes the blame for Sarny. Having told his father, Clel tries to figure out who had taken the bible because he knows that Dealey did not take it. With no one confessing, he then tells his son to whip Dealey. Reluctant at first, he is overcome with anger and whips Dealey. As he is tries to continue, he is stopped by John who says that he was the one who took it. This results in Clel chopping off John’s finger as punishment. When asked if he had learned his lesson, John says yes but then begins to write the alphabet in the dirt. Clel then attempts to shoot John but Jeffery hits him in the head with a gun instead, telling his father that he will take care of it. He tells the other to sell John and get him off his property. As he is leaving, John tells Sarny that she knows what she must now do, which is to forge the other note. When he leaves, Joe asks Sarny what John had writing in the dirt and Sarny replies that he had written “John”. Sarny is then seen forging the second note for Outlaw and telling them to name their baby John if it was a boy.

The next morning, when Sarny goes to deliver the book back to the doctor, instead of putting it on the table, she put it in its right spot on the shelf. She then hands the pennies back to the doctor saying that she cannot keep his secrets anymore. Confused, the doctor then realizes that Sarny had meant when he realizes that Sarny had put the book in the right place. The doctor then hurries to the church where Clel and his man are also going. Clel interrupts the service saying that he had found two notes written and signed with his name in two different handwritings. He states that the first slave had been sold and is now looking for the second. When no one answers, Clel says that he will shoot all of his slaves. As he starts to count to three, Sarny finishes it saying “3”. She then says that Clel would not shoot them because they are worth money. Since Clel had lost everything in the cotton fields, the slaves are now his wealth. Sarny explains to Clel that she is worth the most to him because of what she knows. Sarny tells Calle to say what she has to say to Clel but she insists that she does not know what Sarny is talking about and tells Clel to shoot the girl. Clel refuses saying that he wants to know what Sarny is talking about. The doctor then intervenes saying that he is to blame. He lies and says that he had taught Egypt how to read simple things and that Egypt had then taught Sarny. Thinking everything had been solved; Calle tells Clel that she wants Sarny to be sold. The movie ends with Sarny being sold and explains that there is a bit of John in all of them.

Cast

• Sarny (Allison Jones) – taken care of by Dealey after her mother is sold.
• John (Carl Lumbly)- Slave bought by Clel who had escaped to the North, but had given freedom up so he can teach slaves how to read.
• Dealey (Lorraine Toussaint) – acts like a mother to Sarny and is initially against learning how to read.
• Joe (Gerald Brown) – the oldest member of the slaves who is respected by everyone.
• Clel Wallace (Beau Bridges) – cold-hearted owner of the slaves and a cotton plantation.
• Calle Wallace (Kathleen York) – Clel’s wife who has an affair with the doctor. She is seen as being kind and sympathetic to the slaves.
• Outlaw (Gabriel Casseus) – a slave who had fallen in love with a girl from another plantation.
• Egypt (Monica Ford) – Outlaw's love interest.
• Arthur Wallace (John P. Ford III) – Clel’s oldest son who sees the slaves as friends.

History

Nightjohn is a movie that depicts the lives of African American slaves in the antebellum South. Literacy plays an important part in the struggle for power between the slaves and their masters. The idea of keeping slaves illiterate was a tool for white Southerners’ to keep the slaves subordinate. ^[1] Without the ability to read, slaves were often tricked into doing things that they did not want to do. They weren’t able to read the laws or deeds that affected their future and resulted in them becoming slaves. After the civil war had ended, there was a problem pertaining to what to do what the African American people. With slavery’s stabilizing influence gone, the Freedman’s Bureau was created to remedy the situation ^[2]. It proposed that they should educate the former slaves and advance the reconciliation between the North and the South. They also hoped that it would create a lasting peace and order between the different races.^[2] The bureau also sought to create schoolhouses in order to regain the stability lost by the end of slavery.^[2]

References

1. ^ Brown, Jean E. and Elaine C. Stephens (1998). United in Diversity: Using Multicultural Young Adult Literature in the Classroom. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. pp. 103–110. ISBN 0814155715. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Spivey, Donald (1978). Schooling for the New Slavery. Westport: Greenwood Press. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0313200513. 

External Links

• Nightjohn at the Internet Movie Database
• Nightjohn at Rotten Tomatoes