New York, Sept. 22 (BUS): Sidney Poitier was not expected to live. Born two months prematurely to uneducated tomato growers in the Caribbean. His father planned to use the shoe box as a temporary coffin.
Poitier’s rise from this humble origin to become an Academy Award-winning box office hit and civil rights Hollywood remake seems almost scriptural, almost too good to be true, but such was the life of Poitier, who lived a good life.
The new documentary “Sydney” respectfully traces that life, painting a portrait of a fighter hoping to improve everything he does every day. “I’m really, really trying to be better tomorrow than I was today,” he told the camera.
Written by Jesse James Miller and directed by Reginald Hudlin, “Sydney” is an executive production of Oprah Winfrey – to whom she loaned several hours of her private interviews with Poitiers – and members of his family. It shines with respect for the man who earned it.
Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for Best Leading Performance and the first to win the highest box office award. He passed away this year at the age of 94.
For most of the film, the gray-haired Poitier addresses the camera in a gray suit jacket with a pocket square and a white open-necked button-down shirt—just as elegant, as always. Sometimes old interviews from Poitiers the Younger are added, making it appear as if he is talking to himself.
Highlights include his devastating encounter with racism as a teenager in Miami, and the fun story of his first encounter with a subway and how a classified ad looking for actors changed his life. And he thought, “I could be a lot of things here.” Cast out of the American Negro theater for being shoddy, he took acting lessons and lost his Caribbean accent by buying a radio for $14 and learning to imitate the newsreader he admired.
The filmmakers focus on a charismatic change-maker, but they are also credited with discovering when he missed his high moral standards, as when he was in a long relationship with Diahan Carroll, which led to a divorce that split the family.
Poitiers’ moral compass was stronger than others. Early in his career, he turned down an exploitative, unheard of part of the decision at the time. Then, after making his way to the top and opening the door to other non-acting actors, he was criticized.
Some have called him out for being too adaptable in The Defiant Ones, chained and helping a white Tony Curtis, or for his love of a white woman in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The major became blocked as the black militancy grew stronger. So Poitier focused on directing and producing, still helping others move up the ladder.
The film draws on the candid memories of the children of Poitier and his ex-wife, as well as friends such as Morgan Freeman, Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, Andrew Young, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Louis Gossett Jr., and Robert Redford.
Other sounds are less effective, showing a bend in attracting stars but with little contact with the man. Barbra Streisand adds a little—”He was like, ‘Wow!′ movie stars must be, ‘Wow! – And we learned that Halle Berry wanted to marry him.
Even Oprah seems a little suspicious of interviewing herself but it does make sense when she remembers meeting Poitier for the first time on her 42nd birthday, a time in her life when she was being criticized by the black community for not doing enough, just as Poitier did too.
He told her, “It’s hard to bear other people’s dreams.” “So you have to hold on to the dream inside you and know that if you’re honest with that, that’s all that matters.”
For those unfamiliar with some of Poitier’s most famous moments, the news of a pivotal slap will come as a surprise. Fifty-five years before Will Smith won Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, Detective Virgil Tibbs slapped the Poitier actor as the owner of an on-screen white farmhouse in “In the Heat of the Night.”
It was electrifying, coming in 1967 as the civil rights movement was reaching its peak. Hearing how deeply it affected the Black Stars in the future is powerful.
Another rich vein is revealed in the relationship between Poitiers and Belafonte, which one of the former sons likens to the dynamism of an elderly couple. They tied, fought, reconciled, and even once bypassed the KKK. Looks like there’s almost another movie here about these two charismatic men.
But first let’s celebrate Poitiers, a man of impossible dignity and morals, the man who in the movie Lenny Kravitz said “came to this earth to move it.”