Many
American films depict the South in a very bad light, so a
more balanced cinematic presentation may tend to be heartwarming.
The Rising Place, directed by Tom
Rice and based on the novel by David Armstrong, falls into
the latter category. The film centers on Emily ("Millie")
Hodge (played by Laurel Holloman as a young woman, by Alice
Drummond as a dying woman), from her courageous stand to protest
bigotry in 1945 until her death, told with flashbacks and
flashforwards. The heart of the film is about the deaths of
two fine African Americans in Hamilton, Mississippi. During
World War II, a Black man took a job while Eddie Scruggs (played
by Scott Openshaw), a White man, went off to the war; he proved
to be an excellent worker. When Eddie returns from the war,
he importunes Will because he does not get the job back and
then nearly bludgeons him to death. Since Eddie's father is
the town mayor and a candidate for senator, he is not prosecuted.
When Wilma Watson (played by Elise Neal), a Black schoolteacher,
decides to organize a protest about the injustice that includes
marking out the name of the senatorial candidate on posters,
Eddie confronts her belligerently. Backing up on a porch to
avoid him, she falls through a loose railing to the ground,
where her head hits a stone and she dies. Millie then appears,
and Eddie runs away. Millie decides to testify in a trial
conducted in Jackson, the state capitol, about the apparent
murder, and Eddie convicts himself through an outburst in
court. However, Millie is blackballed in town, not only because
of her testimony in court but also because she became pregnant
out of wedlock (the baby is taken away from her at birth for
adoption), so her father buys her a house some distance from
the town, and her indiscretions are hushed up. Millie, however,
has a habit of writing eloquent letters to her promiscuous
pilot boyfriend Harry Devening (played by Jackson Walker),
who dies in the war, and the letters are returned to her.
One day a gentleman stops by her place while traveling from
nearby Memphis. In his role as her boyfriend's commanding
officer, he read the letters in Europe and feels compelled
to compliment her for her good deeds in bringing about justice.
His visit prompts her to rethink her reclusive existence and
thus became the "rising place" in her life. She
then becomes a successful schoolteacher, loved by all in town.
Some years later, when Millie is feeble and cared for by her
sister, her niece Virginia Wilder (played by Frances Fisher)
arrives in town to celebrate Christmas with the family, discovers
the letters, and informs Millie on her deathbed how much she
admires her courage and graciousness. What is clear in the
plot is that women maintain what is often called the Southern
way of life through courtesy and decency, while White men
either engage in disreputable deeds or fear the opprobrium
of other men. White women lack racist prejudice in the film,
associating with each other as best friends, while White men
harbor maneuver to maintain dominance. Such a view of the
South was previously seen, albeit more eloquently, in Driving
Miss Daisy (1989), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991),
and Cookie's Fortune (1999). More of the same is always welcome
as the United States continues to deal, not always successfully,
with institutional racism, North and South. MH
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