NOTE: Read Cinema Gotham's interview with The Education of Sonny Carson director Michael Campus
THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
A lot of message films pander to their audiences with easy lessons and
simple uplifting morals. By contrast, Michael Campus' The Education
of Sonny Carson (1974) is a tough, dark story that doesn't much
play
easy with the more troubling aspects of its subject. Based on the
memoirs of Sonny Carson, a controversial civil rights activist, the
film depicts the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bed-Stuy (also the setting
of
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing) and Brownsville during extremely
trying times. At the start of the film the young Carson is shown
receiving an award for good citizenship and scholarship. Soon after,
however, he's thrown in juvenile detention for attempting to rob a
store. The duality between these two scenes informs Carson's entire
life, with his gang involvement setting the stage for a life of
tragedy.
Ultimately, The Education shows Carson (played for most of the film by the excellent Rony Clanton) learning some lessons and
moving on. The journey, however, is a tough one.
From the start,
the desperation in Carson's life is evident. The grocery store robbery
consists of little more than handfuls of change. And his early
incarceration is shot in a darkly foreboding way, emphasizing the
loneliness of his life. When he gets released from juvenile
detention, Carson immediately joins up with the Lords, a Brooklyn gang.
His
initiation, a run through "the old mill," consists of a severe
pipe-and-chain beating by other gang members. This sort of self-abuse
points out how much tougher these gangs were than the cowards of today,
whose initiation may involve murdering an innocent bystander rather
than
absorbing the hurt personally. While it's painful to watch, it's easy
to
see how this ritual would help these lost youths feel a stronger bond;
It may hurt, but they've all felt it.
Carson's time with the Lords is depicted in a number of memorable scenes,
including a couple of rumbles with the rival Hawks. For their first
encounter, Campus shows the preparations and the gang members rushing
towards one another, intercut with a rousing street gospel performance, and then abruptly cuts to the aftermath. This bold
move may have been created by circumstance (on the commentary track
Campus explains that he heard rumor that the two gangs were really
going
to fight, so he cut the scene) but the effect is astonishing. It
emphasizes the reasons for the violence and the consequences without luridly
reveling in the violence itself. The second battle, a huge rumble in
Prospect Park does play out on screen, but to much more tragic
ends.
Campus stages a number of scenes that stick with the viewer. Both
gangs take part in a huge parade that plays with as much joy as the
participants must have felt. Sonny picks up sweet Virginia (Joyce Walker) on a
comically over-crowded subway train, a scene that's funny, touching and
achingly real all at once. And in one extended sequence, key to the film's sad emotional undercurrent, Carson and his
best Lords friends smoke weed and dream about their ideal jobs (the
captain of the Queen Mary being one of the more creative ones). The
film
takes an even darker turn when one of Sonny's friends is killed,
leading
to a powerful funeral scene with a seemingly possessed preacher (the
amazing Ram John Holder) repeatedly asking who killed the young man while clearly
pointing the finger at everyone there.
There is also a complex relationship depicted between Carson and his father Pops (the outstanding Richard Benjamin) in a just a few short scenes. Like the rest of the film this dynamic is honest and points to the conflicted feelings of people in turmoil. Pops slaps Sonny hard across the face in one early flashback but as the film progresses it becomes clear from his sporadic appearances that he places much of the blame for Sonny's path on his own shoulders. By the time Pops visits Sonny in prison (one of the most powerful scenes ever based on a prison visit) he is nearly paralyzed with guilt and self-loathing.
This sort of complex moral view runs throughout the film with Sonny straying from the righteous
path (he robs a delivery boy) while still learning hard lessons about life. He endures an
extremely brutal beating at the hands of a couple of cops and later meets with some sad
disappointments after a stint in Sing Sing prison. The constant barrage of urban decay could be
repetitious in less capable directorial hands but Campus balances the darkness perfectly.
Ultimately, the film tells a story that could belong to anyone living under such dire
circumstances. Since the film doesn't explore the following years (when Carson became an
outspoken critic of white society, loved and hated equally) it is free to concentrate on what its title
emphasizes: education. The streets are Carson's classroom and that he was able to survive at all
was the lesson.
VIDEO:
The film is presented in a new anamorphic widescreen transfer. The image itself, however, is less
than perfect. The contrast is a tad low and the elements show some occasional damage. There is
also some compression evident. Still, this transfer is acceptable considering the age of the
elements and the low-budget nature of the film. It was originally released by Paramount but the
current DVD release is by VCI Entertainment. What happened to the negative in the quarter century
between is anybody's guess, however. The distributor wasn't able to find an actual film negative and the transfer was cobbled together from various sources including video. Considering all that it looks remarkably good.
AUDIO:
The Dolby Digital mono soundtrack is fine. A bit noisy at times and lacking in range, it is
usually clear and understandable. Again, considering the age of the film the audio is acceptable.
NOTE: Early pressings apparently had an audio error which caused a strange echo effect on the voices for several scenes including the first Lords / Hawks rumble. The error was corrected before the disc came out but in the event that you have this problem (It's very blatant) you should return it for a new copy.
EXTRAS:
A fine commentary track from director Michael Campus and Sonny Carson himself is included. This
is really the most important feature that could have been included and it is filled with
fascinating material on Carson's life and on the film. It's incredible how many characters and
actors from the film Carson says are now dead.
The disc also includes audio bios for Campus and Carson as well as a photo gallery of stills from the film as well as one taken, not
from the film, but from Carson's own life.
FINAL
THOUGHTS:
An extraordinarily honest and direct film, The Education of Sonny Carlson is one of the most vital stories ever told about the inner city. From the tough Brooklyn streets to any ghetto in the world, the struggles here are universal. What Carson and Campus did was distill the essence of this battle for the soul down to the most basic elements: Sadness, disappointment, longing and fear.
Email Gil Jawetz at cinemagotham@yahoo.com
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