The Learning Tree

I'd like to review this cinematic "thing," but I can't, because Amazon's Gauleiter would block me. Thus follows a self-censored version. Parks ripped off Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy (according to another customer reviewer), he obviously ripped off The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and he ripped off the murder of Emmett Till. In the Malcolm X book, a racist, white school teacher tells the young Malcolm Little that he's "ugly." (Malcolm was actually very handsome.) In Parks' thing, a racist, white school teacher cheats the young Parks (named "Newt" here) on his grades, and tells him that because he's black, he should forget about going to college, because he's just going to end up being a train porter, anyway. Neither woman existed in reality. The Emmett Till connection is due to Parks depicting the teenaged Marcus Savage character as coming out of reform school (for stealing) with a permanently disfigured face. That character also never existed. The most incompetently shot scene is one in which black Booker Savage (Marcus' father), who had told white Silas Newhall that he wanted to murder a white, beats white Jake Kiner to death with a crow bar. Parks mistakenly positioned the camera, so that each time Savage swings the crow bar, we see it pound the stall's dirt. Apparently none of the crew had the nerve to tell Parks he'd screwed up. The Learning Tree is a long lecture, in which Gordon Parks rants and raves about how much he hates white people. The truth is that Parks would have accomplished nothing without whites' help.

I was cross referencing to try and see the relationship between 'Little House' and this film. Seems the gang was all there and they could have been shooting one or the other between takes. This wasn't the best movie I've seen, but it was better than all the over produced, careless after thoughts that make it to the screen these days. It had integrity and sincerity, and for it's time, was a pretty bold attempt to bring forward issues that were very unapproachable in '69. There was so much controversy over the black/white scenario at the time, I was surprised to see someone try and make an audience see both sides with equal understanding.

I watched it now in the future present. I really enjoyed how they wrote it and how the cops and the people and the other people talked and communicated and I loved the whole process. But the best part was a very good transition between social castes and ideologies, it was all very good.

I saw this movie when it first came out and I was very impressed. Here was a film about black people that was very positive and the protagonist was a young black male. I was a young black male in Ninth grade and I could really identify with this film. Now if you examine films that were released that year or 10 years before none of them featured a story about a young black male. The photography was beautiful and memorable. I walked out of this film feeling proud and out of all the genre of films made during the blaxploitation era this one and sounder are certainly the most universal. This was something that could have been done by Disney if they had the vision then that they have now! I highly recommend this film and book to students in secondary school and university and since I teach at both I do.

I think Gordon Parks, did a very good job. I saw the Learning Tree as a child, read it as a child and was happy to see it again as an adult, I even gave my son the book. I applaud Gordon Parks for trying perhaps if he had help (not necessarily someone else total directing it could have flowed a little better). I would love to see this film remade, but who could do it, without deviating from the premise and who could capture the cinematography the way Mr. Parks did. Let me know and maybe we could petition Hollywood. There are a lot of talented black directors who probably could remake the movie but would they be interested???. Spike Lee maybe, John Singelton, the Hudlin brothers??? With the way movies (remakes that is) are being made nowadays, I would love to see a high quality remake. The movie would also need high quality actors. I am going to purchase the movie on DVD and watch it again. Well anyway, I respect your opinion and would like to some feedback on my opinion.

Bill Cosby lists this as one of his favorite all-time movies. From a thematic standpoint, it is easy to see why. The film takes place in the bucolic Midwest in the 1920s-- not the South, which in and of itself is unusual for a 60's movie focusing on race relations. The performances of the two young men are perfect even though some of the words they utter seem rather forced. THe supporting cast is uniformly excellent, and avoids stereotypes. Deserving of special notice is recently deceased Dana Elcar as the racist lawman who still tries to be a good albeit racist person. His declined offer to give the boys a ride at the end of the movie is, in its own way, a microcosm of the entire film and the principles and people involved.

This was one of the films that really sucked me in and gave me a look at what life was like growing up black in the early part of the century. The setting for the film was splendid.

source: The Learning Tree

The Learning Tree

I was cross referencing to try and see the relationship between 'Little House' and this film. Seems the gang was all there and they could have been shooting one or the other between takes. This wasn't the best movie I've seen, but it was better than all the over produced, careless after thoughts that make it to the screen these days. It had integrity and sincerity, and for it's time, was a pretty bold attempt to bring forward issues that were very unapproachable in '69. There was so much controversy over the black/white scenario at the time, I was surprised to see someone try and make an audience see both sides with equal understanding.