Books, Arts & Manners: O Rare Mister Johnson

BRUCE BERESFORD’S Mister Johnson, from Joyce Cary’s novel, was favorably reviewed on the whole, but not in a way to send people racing to the box office. When I saw it a second time, I was one of four people in the theater. Too bad, because Mister Johnson is a work of genius.

I regret not having read the novel, but, knowing Cary’s work, I have no doubt that it is a major achievement. And knowing Bruce Beresford, I have no doubt that he and his screenwriter, the novelist William Boyd, were faithful to Cary’s spirit and, wherever possible, letter. Beresford is occasionally obliged to make a predominantly commercial movie, and acquits himself honorably. But he is incomparable when he gets hold of a story that really gets hold of him, and he works, as an artist should, primarily to please himself. Such films, from his Australian days, were The Gaining of Wisdom, Don’s Party, and the magisterial Breaker Morant: such, in America, were Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy. There are also virtually unknown films of his, such as the haunting The Fringe Dwellers, about Australian aborigines in a white culture, which American audiences, white and black, completely ignored.

JS

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John Simon

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BRUCE BERESFORD’S Mister Johnson, from Joyce Cary’s novel, was favorably reviewed on the whole, but not in a way to send people racing to the box office. When I saw it a second time, I was one of four people in the theater. Too bad, because Mister Johnson is a work of genius.

I regret not having read the novel, but, knowing Cary’s work, I have no doubt that it is a major achievement. And knowing Bruce Beresford, I have no doubt that he and his screenwriter, the novelist William Boyd, were faithful to Cary’s spirit and, wherever possible, letter. Beresford is occasionally obliged to make a predominantly commercial movie, and acquits himself honorably. But he is incomparable when he gets hold of a story that really gets hold of him, and he works, as an artist should, primarily to please himself. Such films, from his Australian days, were The Gaining of Wisdom, Don’s Party, and the magisterial Breaker Morant: such, in America, were Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy. There are also virtually unknown films of his, such as the haunting The Fringe Dwellers, about Australian aborigines in a white culture, which American audiences, white and black, completely ignored.