Three years before the
miniseries Roots (1977) became an
unexpected ratings blockbuster and opened many Americans’ eyes to the breadth
of suffering that Africans and their U.S.-born children endured during a
century of American slavery, The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman explored similar subject matter and
earned a reputation as one of the best TV movies ever made. (Accolades showered
upon the film included nine Emmy awards.) Based on a novel by Ernest J. Gaines,
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
is purely fictional, depicting a 110-year-old woman as she recalls her life
from the Civil War in the 1860s to the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. Gaines’
clever structure, which involves a journalist asking Miss Jane Pittman for her
memories, allows the film to present vignettes that illustrate myriad forms of
abuse, oppression, and prejudice. Through each harrowing episode, themes of
dignity and perseverance dominate, so the movie offers both an indictment of
racist social structures and a tribute to the people who survived life within
those structures.
At the beginning of the picture, Jane (Cicely Tyson) is
physically frail but mentally sharp, so she’s able to oblige a request from New
York reporter Quentin Lerner (Michael Murphy) for a description of her life.
Most of the film unfolds in flashbacks, with Valerie Odell playing the title
character as a child in a few scenes and Tyson handling most of the
performance. Some of the experiences that Jane describes are historic, as when
a plantation owner grants young Jane her freedom, and some are horrific, as
when racist vigilantes attack a group of ex-slaves, leaving Jane to fend for
herself in unfriendly territory. Each time Jane finds joy, tragedy follows. Her
happy marriage to Joe Pittman (Rod Perry) ends prematurely, and her
guardianship of an orphan named Ned (played by three different actors) takes a
dark turn. Jane recalls the tribulations of Reconstruction, during which
northern carpetbaggers plundered the demolished American south, and she
describes how working as a sharecropper following emancipation was simply
another form of slavery. Yet the filmmakers never take the easy path of
suggesting that Jane was some pivotal historical figure--excepting her
incredible strength of character, she is an everywoman representing the African-American
experience. Only at the very end of the story do the filmmakers gift Jane with
“importance,” thanks to a climactic scene that encapsulates Jane’s mode of
quiet defiance.
Finding fault with The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is not an impossible task, but only the
most hard-hearted would try. The film’s politics are humane, and the story’s
engagement with history is meaningful and unflinching. If no one real person
actually had all of Jane’s experiences, so what? The stories of thousands who
lived through the nightmare of slavery and its aftermath remain untold, so this
fictional character speaks for them. Tyson does fine work, even when slathered
in award-winning old-age makeup created by Dick Smith and Stan Winston. She
plays every scene with emotion and sincerity, resisting many opportunities for
cheap sentimentality and instead sketching a portrait infused with pride and
resilience. The supporting cast is fine, the script by Tracy Keenan Wynn is
efficient, and the direction by John Korty is unobtrusive, but the experience
of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
is all about watching Tyson channel decades of suffering through a prism of
embattled self-respect.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: RIGHT ON
