The Liberation of L.B. Jones 1970 DVDrip AVI lee1001

The Liberation of L.B. Jones 1970 DVDrip AVI lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065979/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberation_of_L.B._Jones

A surprisingly tough-minded adaptation of Jesse Hill Ford's novel of Southern racism, with co-scriptwriter Stirling Silliphant eschewing the easy options of his earlier In the Heat of the Night for a grim demonstration of the inadequacies of liberal compromise over the institutional conflicts of class and colour. Wyler's final film, set in Tennessee, finds its catalyst in the divorce action brought by middle class black undertaker Browne, in which a white cop (Zerbe) is named as co-respondent.



With his controversial and racially charged final film The Liberation of L.B. Jones, William Wyler confounded critics and audiences alike.

The title of William Wyler's final film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones, is as ironic as that of his most famous work, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): L.B. Jones's only liberation will be in death.



Many critics were taken aback by this extraordinary film when it was released in 1970. Surprising, ferocious and even sickening were among the adjectives most frequently employed. Variety dismissed it as an inter-racial sexploitation film, whereas Andrew Sarris thought it remarkable. Coming so soon after successful liberal films that close on a note of racial harmony, such as In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), the film's pessimism must have seemed totally unexpected.



Even more surprising was the fact that this unremittingly grim film was made by Hollywood veteran William Wyler, the most honoured of all American directors, but one whose critical reputation had fallen dramatically during the heyday of auteurism. His films were dismissed as cold and impersonal, but L.B. Jones is hot and impassioned. The late, great Robin Wood uncharitably dismissed Wyler's work as archetypally bourgeois, but there's nothing bourgeois about this filmâ's rage against white supremacists.



L.B. Jones (Roscoe Lee Browne) is a wealthy black undertaker in a small Tennessee town seeking divorce from his young wife, who is having an affair with a white policeman (Anthony Zerbe). When Brown's wife contests the divorce, the white lawyer (Lee J. Cobb) representing him begins to get cold feet because it means the name of her lover will come out in court, jeopardising race relations and the policemans career. The events that follow uncover a procession of sexual and legal hypocrisies and outrages by which blacks are oppressed by whites in that community. Everything builds to a violent climax involving two murders and mutilations. In both cases, the guilty perpetrator escapes unpunished.



One would expect a Wyler film to be well acted; he had, after all, guided more actors to Oscar-winning performances than any other director. Roscoe Lee Browne, Lee J. Cobb and Anthony Zerbe are the pick of a fine cast, Zerbe in particular excelling as the wretched cop who has a modicum of conscience writhing uncomfortably beneath his surface bigotry. A scene between Zerbe and Brown across a breakfast table, in which the cop tries to pressure the undertaker into dropping the divorce, is an especially fine example of Wyler's mise en scne: Brown's stillness reflects the characters obstinacy, while Zerbes nervous pacing and his inability to command the cinematic space eloquently suggest the policemans innate weakness.The most powerful sequence is the ten-minute chase of Jones across a junkyard by two policemen intent on silencing him before he gets to court. I can think of few more desolate and disturbing images in all cinema than the sequences final overhead shot of Jones's murdered body hanging by a hook next to that of a dead dog, which is being called forlornly in the distance by its blind owner, as the two policemen silently survey the result of their nights work.In some ways, the film's most original aspect is its structure. Wyler sets up genre expectations of the liberal Hollywood movie that he then ruthlessly dismantles. Far from revealing a warm humanity under the gruff exterior, Lee J. Cobbs lawyer becomes more deeply compromised and contemptible in his selective morality. Lee Majors young lawyer, seemingly a character likely to rectify wrongs, walks out of the situation with righteous but impotent anger. L.B. Jones refuses to run and his courage leads directly to his brutal murder. A black youth (Yaphet Kotto) who renounces violence midway through the film returns at the end to exact a vengeance more sadistic than the one originally planned



VIDEO

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Duration.... 01:25:08

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Frame Width.... 704

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AUDIO

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