Honeydripper: A Bit Too Much Honey?

Down here in Alabama, we’re thrilled when someone takes the time to notice us. Well, let me correct that–when someone takes the time to notice us in a nice way, in a way that doesn’t reinforce old stereotypes of Southern people and culture as stupid, mean and/or corrupt. That’s why I was excited when I learned about Honeydripper, John Sayles’ new film about the coming of rock n’ roll. It’s set in the mid-fifties, in the fictional town of Harmony, Alabama, and concerns an equally fictional juke-joint called the Honeydripper.

Alas, as much as I admire Sayles’ work (his Lone Star is one of the best films of the ’90s), Honeydripper only partially succeeds. Despite it’s lyrical rhythms and authentic locales–and some great music by Gary Clark, Jr (right) and composer Mason Daring–it’s marred by stereotypes and characters we have seen too many times before.

But, first the good news: Sayles’ working-class sensibilities are still firmly in place, as is his languid, unhurried pace that refuses to play frenetic Michael-Beysian games with his audience. He continues to have faith that there’s a sizable chunk of people who don’t need to be jolted at regular intervals, who don’t need 3.2 explosions per hour, who don’t have the mentality of the cherished 18-25-year-old demographic.

The result is a movie that slinks along, gathering steam slowly, capturing the rural South’s leisurely rhythms. Sayles and cinematographer Dick Pope lovingly photograph the South Alabama locations, capturing that scruffy beauty its denizens love so well. Kudzu drapes the live oaks and lob lolly pines, softening them like some out-of-whack topiary. Cotton field snow-patches are hedged by creek-bottom green. The costume, production design and art direction all combine to create believable atmosphere, at once sharply-etched and softly burnished by time.

Sayles wants to do nothing less than tell the story of the birth of rock n’ roll, personified and made iconic in the characters and place of South Alabama. In true indie style, the plot pulls together the threads of its various characters, bringing them together one fateful night at the Honeydripper. In something of a departure for Sayles, Danny Glover (left) anchors the ensemble as Tyrone “Pinetop” Purvis, the Honeydripper’s owner, who’s in grave financial trouble. He hatches a last-ditch plan to save the bar, which involves bringing in a hot-shot electric guitar player from New Orleans. Complications, of course, ensue.

Glover is aided and abetted by a large ensemble cast, who play colorful characters with names like Maceo, China Doll and Scratch. No Fred Smiths or Betsy Arnolds here, and that’s emblematic of the problem: the characters verge dangerously close to the edge of stereotype, and in several instances, fall completely off the cliff. There’s the big, beautiful, black woman (Davenia McFadden, right), just a-prowlin’ for a man; there’s her victim, rascally-but-true-blue Maceo (Charles S. Dutton, right, in a role he played with more depth in Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune); and there’s Possum (Keb’ Mo’, below left), a blind, muse that only musicians can see (shades of O Brother Where Art Thou?).

Most egregious, perhaps, is Sheriff Pugh, played by Stacy Keach in full Jackie Gleason drag. At any given moment, you expect him to come out with “Yore in a heap o’ trouble, boy.” The point is, these are characters and situations we’ve all seen on TV (think The Jeffersons or, better, Good Times) and in the movies (see Barber Shop or anything by Tyler Perry). It is sad for me to see Sayles’ considerable gifts at dialog put in the service of such one-dimensional, stereotypic characters.

I’m sure that Sayles, as racially sensitive as any filmmaker alive, was aware of the line he was treading. And whether these stereotypes are offensive is surely in the eye of the beholder. The large, mixed-race crowd I saw the film with at Tuscaloosa’s Bama theater was very appreciative, and the questions I heard thrown at Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi were softball. The one question revolving around how an all-white writing and producing team could do justice to the black experience was artfully dodged by Sayles (I couldn’t stay for all the Q&A; had to get my wife home before she turned into a pumpkin).

Honeydripper wants to play out on the level of myth, and archetypes are the stuff of myths. Problem is, the line between archetype and stereotype is razor-thin and extremely hard to walk, and very few films do it successfully. Earlier Sayles efforts like Lone Star and Passion Fish succeed; the present one just misses.

Still and all, Honeydripper has considerable pleasures. It has a keen sense of rhythm and place, and beautiful, evocative photography and production design. Above all, it has John Sayles’ sure direction and pacing, honed over almost 30 years of directing feature films. It eschews the Hollywood need to keep things moving, moving, moving. Instead, it ambles along at the pace of life.