The Learning Tree Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Susan Rice

Critical Essay by Susan Rice

Gordon Parks is a still photographer. He directed The Learning Tree, his first motion picture. It is still born. Dare I say primitive? Gordon Parks is black. If he wasn't nobody would pay much attention to his picture. But he is, and everybody is giving the film much more attention and praise than it deserves….

I am also sorry that the first massive, lavish, technicolor, mass distributed film by a black man should be so reassuring … like Green Pastures. Parks' remembrance of his boyhood is unaffected but middle-brow, like The Supremes doing Frank Sinatra tunes. The only charitable thing I can think of to say about it is that it is free of self-pity and bombast…. The Learning Tree has some of the stiltedness and some of the sensitivity of Truman Capote's childhood reminiscences. Does the idea of a black Truman Capote strike you as oddly as it does...
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