The Defiant Ones

The Defiant Ones is, for lack of a more descriptive term, a beautiful movie.  It moved me in a way that the previous two films have not. While one cannot help but be moved by the poignant exchanges between Atticus and Scout as well as the dramatic courtroom scene in Mockingbird, The Defiant Ones is a movie that confronts the soul.  As we follow the two jailbirds across the southern wilderness, the audience cannot help but feel that we are following a an allegory-- if not a hopeful one-- for the state of race relations in the American South during the late 1950s.

 The local sheriff tells us that the warden who chained Joe (Tony Curtis) and "Colored" (Poitier) together had a twisted sense of humor. The same warden tells the Sheriff not to worry about catching the escaped convicts-- they will likely kill each other first. Even in chains, Joe and Colored manage to swing their free hands at one another when they irritate each other to their respective breaking points. Colored will not stand to be referred to as n#$%##, or the less derogatory but equally patronizing "boy." Joe is simply volatile. He has fallen from a menial job parking cars to jail, and as a low-down redneck he feels looked down upon in a way that at first elicits contempt for his chain mate, but eventually leads to understanding. Their anger with one another is an invective also directed at the world, the world that has oppressed them both in different ways. Yet they possess a compassion for one another that is slowly revealed in subtle moments: Colored putting mud on Joe's infected wrist; Joe lifting Colored from a mud pit in the pouring rain. The film is a chase movie, but the tension and conflict is most riveting when the two protagonists share their frustrations about the world and with one another. As a viewer, we are less concerned with the two men being caught and more intent on following the gradual kinship that develops between the men. We are taken periodically to the scene of the pursuing police officers and deputized citizens, but they are not villains-- the villain in this story is the prejudice and anger that the two escaped convicts must overcome to survive. They are chained together; they must coexist and work together or meet their end. It is an amazing and before its time (1958) metaphor for the racial fury of the American South at that same time. Ultimately the two men make choices that we never expect but subconsciously hope for: self-sacrifice. After surviving one another, the rain, and a near lynching in a local village, the two men come upon a farm where a beautiful widow and her son live alone. Joe’s infected wrist has given him and fever, and he falls for the woman as she nurses him back to health though the night. After breaking their chains off, the two men go their separate ways so that Joe can stay with his newfound love interest. Colored heads off into the swamp with the widow's directions to guide him to train tracks. When she reveals to Joe that her directions are meant to sabotage Colored's chance of escape, he abandons the jezebel and her car to track down his chain mate and lead them both to freedom. Before he can leave, the woman's young son shoots Joe as he pushes his mother aside. When he finds Colored, he can barely run. They make it out of the swamp and reach the train.  It is the bullet wound that slows Joe as he stretches towards the outstretched hand of Colored on the train that will lead them to freedom. And when the grip breaks, the second self-sacrifice must be made. Colored jumps from the train and the two men roll into the field below.  The running is over, but the metaphorical chains have been broken. Colored holds Joe in his arms as they pant like dogs and lean back into the tall grass.  As the hounds and trackers approach, the two men smile. They no longer see each other as chain-mates or enemies or even as black and white-- there is almost a sense of freedom in their expressions. Freedom from anger-- freedom from prejudice. Colored sings loudly the same song that opens the film on the rainy night of their escape, a folk song about Bowling Green and sewing machines.

From the movie's first scene I was struck by the notion of equality in suffering. Both men are imprisoned in so many ways. But the truly beautiful thing about this movie is watching the two characters realize that they are not equal in their suffering but in their humanity, in the goodness that I believe we all, even criminals, possess somewhere inside of us. I doubt the makers of this film expected whites and blacks to find the same transition from hatred to tolerance to love that we see between Joe and Colored, but I think they would have been content with something between tolerance and love. More people should have pondered this film in 1958 besides the critics and film buffs; I am confident that there is a story to tell about the story being told in this picture. I now have one.

 I look forward to reading what the experts, and others, have to say about this picture. What does the title of this film mean? I'll ponder that myself. Until then...