NATIVE SON  | © Viennale
Image of movie Native Son
Image of movie Native Son
Historiografie: Argentinischer Film Noir

Native Son

Pierre Chenal
Argentina, United States 1951
106 min
V'22

In 1940, American writer Richard Wright published his seminal novel Native Son about the grim fate of a young African-American named Bigger Thomas, who becomes a murderer because he instinctively translates his deeply rooted fears into violence.
In a 1950 interview, Wright stated that he found it impossible to make a faithful film version of the book in the United States, so he accepted Pierre Chenal’s suggestion to shoot it in Argentina, where the director had worked after fleeing from Nazi-occupied France. Chenal also persuaded Wright to play the main character himself because he sensed that the writer could express the emotional scars of racial prejudice better than any actor. His original version of the film was released in Argentina in English with Spanish subtitles and was highly successful. But when Chenal and Wright tried to screen it in the United States, it was heavily cut and mutilated. A recent restoration undertaken by the Library of Congress thanks to the efforts of Argentine scholar Edgardo Krebs allowed the film to find a very belated – and well deserved – world audience.

Curated by Fernando Peña and Roger Koza.

Credits
  • Richard Wright
  • Jean Wallace
  • Gloria Madison
  • Nicholas Joy
  • Ruth Roberts
  • George Rigaud
  • Richard Wright
  • Pierre Chenal nach dem gleichnamigen Buch von Richard Wright
  • A.U. Merayo
  • George Garate
  • John Elhert
Argentina Sono Films
Kino Lorber
35 mm
Schwarzweiß
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