A Different Kind of Fight

"I JUST CAN'T make pictures about spaceships, "says Norman Jewison, director of such films as The Cincinnati Kid, ... And Justice for All, In the Heat of the Night, and Fiddler on the Roof among others. "I'm not interested in them, I'm interested in people," he adds.

In his latest film, A Soldier's Story, Jewison has stood by his word, creating a thought-provoking though somewhat muddled movie which examines the painful clashes between individuals and cultures. Moreover, his subject-which does not lend itself to an interplanetary plot or elaborate special effects-is no favorite of box-office treasures or Hollywood moguls: racism and discrimination in America.

The setting is a 1944 Louisiana army base where Master Sergeant Vernon Waters, leader of an all Black company, is murdered one dark night outside of the camp. The white base commander seeks to quiet a potentially explosive situation, quickly blaming the shooting on the local Klu Klux Klan. But his efforts are undone when the Army sends a Negro military attorney, a polished, Howard University-trained officer, to investigate. Instead of accepting two seemingly culpable white officers as scapegoats, Captain Richard Davenport pushes on with his search. And with integrity and tenacity, he uncovers the true, frightening nature of the victim, his killers, and their crime.

The film is, of course, valuable not simply as a murder mystery, but also as a penetrating examination of changing attitudes of both Blacks and whites-the former beginning to strive for his equal place in society, the latter, begrudgingly, beginning to accept it. Armed with intelligence and confidence, Davenport represents the changing American Negro-the connection between the scraping and subservience of the past, and the pride and self-satisfaction of the future.

In contract to Davenport, the late Sergeant Waters (Whom we see and hear about in a series of flashbacks) sought to be accepted by white society in a different way. Waters not only adopted white values for himself, but also tried to force them upon his men. In his effort to better himself and the race, Waters humiliated and scorned those Blacks who did not agree with his view that the race could not move forward until it emulated the whites in every respect. Uttering lines like, "Now I've got you--one less fool for the race to be ashamed of," and "You know how much damage one ignorant Negro can do...and when we slit his throat, he asked as what we had done wrong," Waters becomes a racist as dangerous and as blatant as any Klansman.

The result, a fascinating and unusual look behind stereotypes and simple sociological analyses, is the profound achievement of Jewison and screenwriter Charles Fuller, who reworked his own critically acclaimed 1981 drama, the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Soldier's Play."

A number of the original cast members from the Negro Ensemble Company's New York production appear in the film; especially noteworthy is the performance of Adolph Caesar, who recreates his award-winning portrayal of Master Sergeant Waters. At his best, Caesar affords us a glimpse at a man's inner struggle and torment, torn between conflicting feelings of dignity and disdain. Unfortunately, as is often the case, what worked so successfully on stage can not be transferred to celluloid, and the overall performance lacks its original dramatic power.

A similar problem faces Howard E. Rollins, Jr., best known for his Oscar-nominated role in "Ragtime", who gives a fairly convincing, though not sufficiently stirring performance as Davenport. Clad in military khakis and MacArthur-style mirror sunglasses, Rollins is appropriately impressive as the figure who inspires both white hostility and the mixed emotions of the Black soldiers who have never before seen one of their own in an officer's uniform. While the intensity builds well for the first hour, the climactic scenes just do not deliver the expected emotional payoff. After having maintained a tough and professional presence throughout his investigation, Rollins breaks down as he recognizes the true horror of the murder-but the audience can't share in his tears. Part of the problem is the story itself-while the motive for the crime is apparent, the drive to follow through given the opportunity is far less clear-but Rollins simply doesn't put in the performance the part requires.

A SOLDIER'S STORY leaves one with ambivalent feelings; upon further reflection, the disturbing issues the film raises become magnified in complexity, rather than simpler and clearer in our understanding. This in itself is an important contribution of the film, and its strongest recommendation. The resulting moral ambiguity is somewhat unsettling for audiences accustomed to having their movie ethics etched in laser beams.