Andrea Penso
Finding Forrester
What is a black film? Is an effective criterion for defining a black film based on the script or the race of the actors, director, or producer of a film; or is it something more substantive? I would suggest the latter. For example, the authors of The 50 Most Influential Black Films, S. Torriano Berry and Venise T. Berry, define a black film as “a film with a predominately black cast, which focuses on the black experience with a black-related theme or subject matter” (Berry & Berry, 2001). Other criteria includes: “A film’s changing of images, values, focus, or perspective when addressing important issues in the black community. The social impact of a film and overall attitude; whether or not it is a milestone or first; if it has a distinctly designed influential purpose, and the social significance of its subject matter” (Berry & Berry, 2001). This is an inclusive definition but in a profound sense this is very narrow. As case in point the film Finding Forrester does not have a predominately black cast, however, it is a film that informs the black experience in important ways. A criterion that defines a black film primarily based on the number of blacks in the cast limits the vision and potential of what a black film is. Finding Forrester, with its mixed cast, is definitely a black film. By shifting the paradigm of blackness we find a more crucial element, a more important criteria.
At the heart of Finding Forester are two characters, Jamal Wallace, a sixteen year old black high school student with exceptional writing and athletic skills and William Forrester, an elderly white legendary author who lives as a recluse and ends up mentoring Jamal in writing. The story develops mainly in the context of Jamal’s world, his family, friends, school and social life. Through their relationship Jamal brings Forrester out from his self-imposed isolation, providing him with a friend, a sense of family and a connection to the community-at-large. Forrester is brought face to face with his old foes in academia as Jamal enters a prestigious prep school based on recommendation from his inner-city high school counselor. At the prep school Jamal is accused of forgery by his new literature professor. With an implicit assumption that Jamal is not capable of excelling in both basketball and academia, the professor simply can’t believe that Jamal has produced such high quality writing. For the professor, black represents the body and white represents the mind. In their personal struggles Forrester and Jamal become mutually supportive, helping one another to overcome societal challenges. Forrester mentors Jamal in the art of writing and taking responsibility for himself. Jamal mentors Forrester in the art of loving and living in a world that he has been avoiding for years. It is not a story of white charity toward black people. It is a story of two men, one young, and one old, finding themselves in each other.
The plot of Finding Forrester takes the audience into the black family, the black community and the public and private education systems as they relate to a black youth. The film addresses the plight of the poor, black, urban family and their struggles for social and economic success. Breaking with common images and values that portray blacks struggling to move up and out from their communities, Finding Forrester delivers a fresh depiction of a black youth who seeks to pursue his full potential without abandoning his roots. Though Jamal enters a new white prep school and spends countless hours being mentored by Forrester, we realize in one of the film’s final scenes that success for him does not depend on assimilating into a predominately white world and losing connection to his community. The scene places Jamal full circle, on the same basketball court with the same friends from the “hood”, where he was at the start of the film. However, Jamal is not the same person. He has grown immensely, all the while dispelling the idea that one must “sell out” to succeed. Jamal learns from Forrester without ever relinquishing his own identity.
Finding Forrester is not narrow in its examination of the black community. Jamal, his family and friends are not the only black characters. Upon entering the prep school Jamal finds a fair-skinned upper class black classmate in attendance. Unlike Jamal he is not a scholarship student. He does not identify with Jamal and embrace Jamal simply on the grounds that they are both blacks. They come from distinctly different environments and are therefore distinctly different as black people. The uptown youth aspires to make this distinction very clear to everyone by disassociating himself from Jamal, “They think we’re the same but we’re not”, he insists, in a simple but loaded statement. Finding Forrester does not use a one-hat-fits-all status of the black community. It reveals that black people are collectively part of a diverse group who has their own sets of biases and prejudices. This minor theme within the film is of major significance to the black experience. The attitude here is that black life cannot be defined in one-dimensional terms and must reflect, however unflattering, the larger truth and realities of a varied black people’s experiences.
The fact that Forrester and a number of other white characters share the significant roles alongside Jamal does not make Finding Forrester less of a black film. Their roles do not place the subject matter of the black experience in the background; they actually provide a background, or context, in which the black experience can be examined. It is not the number of leading black characters that make a film black rather the influential purpose of the black characters, however many are present. In Finding Forrester, Jamal influences the perception of black people by shattering the typical symbolism of black men as athletes by being both athlete and scholar. He proves more than a charity case by his own kindness of heart toward a lonely, aging Forrester. The story is not about white heroism and black victimization. Nor is it a “buddy” film where the black character is supporting the white man’s role. Lessons are learned by both parties and the white character in this film receives far more than self-gratification of having helped a poor black youth. By guiding Jamal’s voice, Forrester reclaims his own. Both characters are transformed from having known each other.
Finding Forrester is a story of friendship with both a black and a white character at its center. Jamal demonstrates the intelligence, diversity and humility of black people. Forrester demonstrates the same of whites. It is a story about the human condition and how we as blacks and as whites may fit into this condition together. It is possible that this film attempts to tell the ultimate “black” story, one in which race becomes a matter of humanity, not color.