Wow. Yet again, someone's playing games w/great source material. Read the book. I will try, but I tend to give away plot lines (spoilers); so, stop reading NOW if you don't want to know too much.
Based on an historical novel about the "free" people of color in LA; the movie drops VERY important expository plot lines. Further, the casting director clearly had no idea how to employ people who could actually act. The actor playing Marcel, the "main" character, is jarring. Every moment he is on screen is excruciating to watch and listen to. A corner "be-bop" dropped into 1800s LA.
Plot: Plessage, the custom in LA during the 1800s, or auctioning off light skinned Black women to wealthy white men willing to set them up for life (or the life of the relationship), in nice houses. An entire class of people of color survived, some would say triumphed, by bartering the flesh of these Quadroons.
Marcel and his sister are the children of a woman of plessage. Marcel is dark and his sister could be a "passe blanc", one who could pass for white. They have an elder sister as well (not revealed to Marcel until midway through the movie) and their "father's" refusal to free her (she is the daughter of a slave, not a free woman of color), leads to a heartbreaking act of revenge on her part. Difficult to watch, but perhaps the most effective part of the movie, serving as it does to jar the reader into realizing that all life in this town, at this time is plessage: women, white, black, whatever, are merely chattel (from the slave to the wives of the wealthy plantation owner). They are all bartered and sold.
Marcel is raised by his mother to believe he is "free" and not really Black, but, as another character tells him, "different", has to learn that he is a "station", not a person. He lives in a world where the facade of "freedom" is maintained by everyone; but when he goes to his father's house, TO THE FRONT DOOR no less, he finds that unless you can "pass blanc", you are simply another Negro. Not different, the same as everyone else.
Ironically, his full sister realizes that she IS Black. And she does not aspire to pass or to be anything other than what she is. To love the Black man she loves, to marry, to have as much happiness as is possible in the world that exists. It is her rape by 5 white men that underscores how impossible happiness is in a world where a woman of any color has limited choices.
Despite the fact that the cast is headed by some well known names; quite a bit of the acting is abysmal. The actor playing Marcel, Ruby Dee, Ben Vereen, Gloria Reuben...they are simply awful. Accents come and go or don't exist at all. The true saving grace of the film? Jennifer Beals. I didn't know she could actually act; but she is more than credible as the owner of the house where the Quadroon balls are held. When she reveals that for a time she was married to a White English Lord, you even believe she was a credible lady of that "manor".
I am not saying to skip this movie; but read the book first. Rich in detail and a feast for the mind, the book far exceeds the midling film.
Based on an historical novel about the "free" people of color in LA; the movie drops VERY important expository plot lines. Further, the casting director clearly had no idea how to employ people who could actually act. The actor playing Marcel, the "main" character, is jarring. Every moment he is on screen is excruciating to watch and listen to. A corner "be-bop" dropped into 1800s LA.
Plot: Plessage, the custom in LA during the 1800s, or auctioning off light skinned Black women to wealthy white men willing to set them up for life (or the life of the relationship), in nice houses. An entire class of people of color survived, some would say triumphed, by bartering the flesh of these Quadroons.
Marcel and his sister are the children of a woman of plessage. Marcel is dark and his sister could be a "passe blanc", one who could pass for white. They have an elder sister as well (not revealed to Marcel until midway through the movie) and their "father's" refusal to free her (she is the daughter of a slave, not a free woman of color), leads to a heartbreaking act of revenge on her part. Difficult to watch, but perhaps the most effective part of the movie, serving as it does to jar the reader into realizing that all life in this town, at this time is plessage: women, white, black, whatever, are merely chattel (from the slave to the wives of the wealthy plantation owner). They are all bartered and sold.
Marcel is raised by his mother to believe he is "free" and not really Black, but, as another character tells him, "different", has to learn that he is a "station", not a person. He lives in a world where the facade of "freedom" is maintained by everyone; but when he goes to his father's house, TO THE FRONT DOOR no less, he finds that unless you can "pass blanc", you are simply another Negro. Not different, the same as everyone else.
Ironically, his full sister realizes that she IS Black. And she does not aspire to pass or to be anything other than what she is. To love the Black man she loves, to marry, to have as much happiness as is possible in the world that exists. It is her rape by 5 white men that underscores how impossible happiness is in a world where a woman of any color has limited choices.
Despite the fact that the cast is headed by some well known names; quite a bit of the acting is abysmal. The actor playing Marcel, Ruby Dee, Ben Vereen, Gloria Reuben...they are simply awful. Accents come and go or don't exist at all. The true saving grace of the film? Jennifer Beals. I didn't know she could actually act; but she is more than credible as the owner of the house where the Quadroon balls are held. When she reveals that for a time she was married to a White English Lord, you even believe she was a credible lady of that "manor".
I am not saying to skip this movie; but read the book first. Rich in detail and a feast for the mind, the book far exceeds the midling film.