The Oprah Winfrey-produced documentary, streaming on Apple TV+, is an appraisal of the man many consider America’s greatest actor.
The story, which Poitier recounts halfway through the film, doubles as a metaphor for the actor’s legacy. He spent his life achieving the impossible: He became an actor, was commercially viable and was the first Black person to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. His ascendance in Hollywood — an historically nationalistic, conservative and racist industry — more than fulfilled the soothsayer’s predictions.
Poitier’s early years were marked by movement and discovery. He spent the first fifteen years of his life in the Bahamas, first in Cat Island and then in Nassau. Moving to the capital broadened Poitier’s understanding of the world — it was there that he remembers seeing a car for the first time and learned how reflections in mirrors work. Hudlin shoots the interviews in which Poitier talks about his upbringing close up, so that the actor’s face almost always engulfs the screen.
It’s this presence that made Poitier a successful actor, although he didn’t start out that way. After 15 years in the Bahamas, Poitier moved to Miami. Before relocating to the United States, Poitier did not consider what he looked like. “I just saw what I saw,” he says at one point. But spending time in Florida changed what he saw and how he processed it. He began to witness the violent relationship between race and power.
Poitier eventually moved to Harlem, where he took a job as a dishwasher and learned how to read. He had never acted before but after coming across an audition call in the, he tried his hand at it. The audition went terribly, but Poitier, not one to be told no, resolved to get better. He purchased a radio so that he could lose his accent by mimicking Norman Brokenshire’s silky voice. He bought books and took classes, struggling through lines as he worked multiple service jobs.
For Poitier, acting was a site of play, a way to inhabit lives unavailable to him. Perhaps that’s why his performances were so electric. Oncemoves past the biographical dump of the first half, it organizes Poitier’s life through his roles. From
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Oprah, Cher Toast Sidney Poitier Apple Doc as a “Memorial and Celebration of His Life”'Sidney,' which Oprah produced and Reginald Hudlin directed, premiered in Los Angeles on Wednesday with a starry group of supporters and Poitier's five daughters.
Read more »
Prince William and Princess Kate Won't Trust Harry and Meghan Until They 'Acknowledge the Pain' Their Oprah Interview Caused, Source SaysIris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Bustle and Shape. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.
Read more »
Oprah, Cher Toast Sidney Poitier Apple Doc as a “Memorial and Celebration of His Life”'Sidney,' which Oprah produced and Reginald Hudlin directed, premiered in Los Angeles on Wednesday with a starry group of supporters and Poitier's five daughters.
Read more »