'Native Son' director Rashid Johnson talks to NBCBLK about the responsibilities of being a black filmmaker and engaging audiences in a conversation about black identity and its complexities.
Taylor Jewell / Invision / AP fileDirector Rashid Johnson has always been fascinated by images of blackness and black masculinity, more specifically how they’ve been portrayed and politicized — sometimes to their detriment.
Johnson’s eagerness to engage with audiences in a conversation around black identity and complexity is also what propelled him and screenwriter Suzan Lori-Parks to reimagine certain elements of the original Richard Wright novel.The book tells the story of Bigger Thomas , a young, poor black man in 1930s Chicago who accidentally suffocates the daughter of his new white employer, and then while on the run he rapes and kills his frightened girlfriend.
So Johnson decided to focus on the sociopolitical questions and expectations that Bigger is confronting — without undercutting Wright’s thesis. He retained the storyline of Bigger asphyxiating Mary but omitted the rape and murder of Bessie . In the film, the protagonist starts choking the latter in a fit of rage in the devastating final moments until he suddenly lets her go before she runs away from him.
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