Word: harlan
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...these allegations are unfair of almost any film project, and certainly fail to acknowledge what Kopple has accomplished in Wild Man Blues Nothing here will make anyone forget Harlan County USA, the landmark documentary she made about union strikes among Kentucky coalminers, but craftsmanship and wit are as present here as in her more socially-minded, dramatic work...
...Though Harlan's repudiation of our most cherished standards of reality ini- tially seems childishly reactionary, it is soonclear that her apparent inability to tell "truthfrom truth" is really a gift for discerning atruer truth as defined by her freely determinedindividual standards. At first, this rejection ofgenerally shared values seems an affront to thereader. Harlan's rejection of convention quicklybecomes understandable, though, as the narrativemakes clear that the common definitions of trueand untrue, right and wrong have only ever beenused to imprison her, conventions that define heras wrong and prevent her from constructing anidentity of her own so that...
...attractive black woman from a workingclass background, Harlan enters a world in whichnearly everyone has a preconceived notion of whatshe should be. While Harlan scrambles to put inplace her own system of beliefs, she is roughlypassed through the world from hand to hand, eachfist attempting to squeeze her into a mold ofexpected identity. Her Grandmother and Mother wishher to be the good housewife, but lose her to thecorruptive North. Her husband wishes her to be hiscollaborator in digging up African roots but losesher to her native America. The wealthy Germanhorse breeder wishes her to be the dangerous spybut loses...
...Harlan's middle name is Truth, after Sojourner,and like her namesake, she returns to the site ofher imprisonment after discovering her own routeto freedom. Harlan is a faith healer, freeingpeople from their ailments by instilling in themfaith in the unbelievable. Just as GrandmotherJaboti was imprisoned by belief in her turtleshell, a Ms. Lee's sinus infection is healed byher faith in clear passages. While new definitionsof truth and untruth based on the randomexperiences of one ordinary woman take somegetting used to, the freedom that Harlan attainssimply by looking at the details of existence in adifferent way is both extraordinary...
...Though Harlan's system of defense makes her aparticularly difficult character with whom torelate, a certain familiar tenacity keeps herengaging and believably human in spite of somerather gross exaggerations in personality. Thoughthe detail and prose style of The Healingalso verge on exaggeration, the flamboyancy andcontemporenaity of the work is amusing in the sameway a reading of Entertainment Magazinemight be. Though the presence of such figures asPaul Simon will certainly (and perhapsintentionally) attach an expiration date to thisnovel, Jones' knack for characterization and herstrong thematic motivation seem to promise anotherwork along the same lines, but with a greatersubtlety of design...