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How long is The Piano Lesson?

The Piano Lesson (film) The Piano Lesson Producers August Wilson Brent Shields Cinematography Paul Elliott Editor Jim Oliver Running time 95 minutes 17 more rows

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1995 American television film by Lloyd Richards

1995 American TV series or program

The Piano Lesson is a 1995 American television film based on the play The Piano Lesson by August Wilson. Produced by Hallmark Hall of Fame, the film originally aired on CBS on February 5, 1995. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the film stars Charles S. Dutton and Alfre Woodard,[1][2] and relies on most of its cast from the original Broadway production.[3] On September 30, 2020, it was announced that Denzel Washington is planning a new film adaptation for Netflix. Filming is expected to begin Summer 2021 in Pittsburgh.[4]

Plot [ edit ]

Boy Willie (Charles S. Dutton) and his friend Lymon (Courtney B. Vance) travel from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, where he wishes his sister Berniece (Alfre Woodard) will give him the family's heirloom piano so that he can sell it to buy land from Mr. Sutter (Tim Hartman), a descendant of the family that once owned Willie's own ancestors as slaves. The piano itself had at one time belonged to the wife of the original Sutter, the white former owner of their family... and decades earlier, Berniece and Boy Willie's grandfather had, at the slave master's instructions, carved the black family's African tribal history and American slave history into the piano's surface. When Boy Willie arrives, his Uncle Doaker (Carl Gordon) tells Willie that Berniece won't part with the piano. Berniece's boyfriend Avery (Tommy Hollis) and her Uncle Wining Boy (Lou Myers) also attempt for reasons of their own to get Berniece to sell. As selling the piano would be like turning her back on their people and their past, Berniece continues to refuse.

Cast [ edit ]

Recognition [ edit ]

DVD Verdict wrote that the "excellent writing leaps off the screen." While noting that most TV films seem geared "towards the lowest common Nielsen family demographic", they write that "something crafted, filled with inordinate drama and rich, dimensional characters just blares across the airwaves, filling up your deepest, hungry cinematic aesthetic," and that this recognition is the case for the Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning play The Piano Lesson. They noted that Wilson has been long known for "profound, deeply moving portraits of African Americans in the United States," and that he "understands the issues facing minorities better than most modern playwrights do." They called the film a "brilliant analog," and a "fable of magic realism."[3] TV Guide wrote that the film is "a wrenching but flawed cable adaptation of August Wilson's play," and that while the film was another Wilson "folk tale about the legacy of slavery," that "Sadly, this particular production fails to make any psychological or ectoplasmic ghosts come alive for the audience." They noted this was not because the film did not make the playwright's message clear, the problem was in "its obviousness" in that Wilson belabored his points.[2]

Awards and nominations [ edit ]

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What do the watermelons symbolize in The Piano Lesson?

In spite of their frustrations, their industry pays off and they are able to get to a neighborhood where they can sell their watermelons. The produce the truck holds is convenient and symbolic, since watermelons are iconographically and comically related to black people. Yet thei represent the best kind of self-help.

Excerpted from Toni Morrison’s introduction to The Piano Lesson

“This truck full of watermelons is not just the play’s mobility–it is also a kind of offstage character with its own colorful personality and multiple roles. [Lymon and Boy Willie] take pride in being able to repair it as it breaks down three times on the way to Pittsburgh and several times after its arrival. In spite of their frustrations, their industry pays off and they are able to get to a neighborhood where they can sell their watermelons. The produce the truck holds is convenient and symbolic, since watermelons are iconographically and comically related to black people. Yet thei represent the best kind of self-help. The truck’s break-down journey is as interesting as its passengers. It has been home and hiding place for Lymon and a double necessity to Boy Willie’s project; he expects its bed to hold two sources of income–selling produce and transporting the valuable piano. Finally, its exit enables a couple, Lymon and Grace, bent on being one, to escape; and it forces Boy Willie to abandon his goal, with no option but to take the train home. The truck bears a heavy weight as symbol and dramatic glue. Integral to the action, it sits offstage but not off page, where it stokes the imagination. What color is it? What make? What is its mechanical problem? What is its future? What will become of it and Lymon and Grace? Like a magic carpet it arrives, solves problems, and disappears with lovers aboard. The time such rumination take and the pleasure they summon are most available in reading.

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