Words well written can bring characters to life, while words well spoken can infuse life into characters, and the platform that solely relies on these both, written words and spoken words is the stage. The difference between stage and cinema is, the former lacks the distraction and the misdirection of the latter, in that, on stage the motivations, perspectives, and conflicts are all through words than through the use of editing, music or other technical aspects. Needless to say, that stage is the purest (plat)form for communication of ideas as it doesn't need to hide behind anything other than what is said and how it is said. Plays that transform into movies have a strange rhythm to them, both in terms of the dialogue delivery and also the staging of the scenes. The two key aspects that elevate the cinematic expression - silence and movement - are greatly restricted in plays and when they are invoked, they are handled with a great sense of responsbility. In the end, cinema shows while stage says.

The early part of Hollywood, 40s and the 50s, survived entirely on the stage, with many of the plays adapted to the screen, a majority of them translated by the original playwrights (Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neil, Tennessee Williams et al). The 60s and 70s saw the ascendacy of visual artistry that relied less on the words and more on the sights. And by the time the 80s and 90s rolled in, stage plays have been truly done and dusted, but for an occasional exception here and there, for the simple reason that there has been a steady fall of writers who have a ear and flair for dialogue. Compared to the rat-a-tat dialogue delivery of a Humphrey Bogart or an Edward Robinson, the later day actors and screen writers relied on mood and context to convey the same idea that earlier took a thousand words. And the only ones left in the game still plying their trade believing in the strength of the word are Aaron Sorkin, Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet, each blessed with a distinct style, rhythm and construction to immediately identify and separate their words from the rest out there. These three don't use words to create the effect, for them, the word itself is the effect. And when in full flow, those words sound music to the ears. There is nothing in any medium (stage or cinema) that'll succeed more than a well written and a well spoken word much more than the greatest special effect that a fastest supercomputer can conjure. Ex: the "ABC, Always Be Closing" speech from 'Glengarry Glen Ross", the "You can't handle the truth" from 'A few good men', or the many prose plays of Tarantino.

'Fences', adapted from a Broadway play, set in Pittsburgh during the 1950's, is one such exercise where what is it about takes a back seat to what is being said and how it is said. It is a character study of a blue collar black family, with the head of the family being a hard boiled personality, the wife, a dutiful, obedient and accommodating one, the kid, just starting to question the authority, and the play an interplay of these characters, all set in 2 locations - a house and its backyard. The movie time is a little over a couple of hours, and there are hardly a few seconds set aside for silence or expressions. The rest is a fast paced, dialogue heavy, inforamtion laden rapid fire of words among the characters, where each dialogue spoken has a sense of purpose and each scene revealing some more about each character. This is not just the usual banter that plays are sometimes accused to indulge in. There is an underlying commentary about the societal conditions, the race relations, the patriarchal setup of those times, not to mention, a psychological examination of the characters. There is not much in the way of a story or a plot as it is about the life and times of those characters. It is a masterful exercise creating a play as such that says a lot about not a whole lot but ends up meaning a lot.

The movie rests on the broad shoulders of Denzel Washington (who also directs) and Viola Davis, playing the father and mother, who are tied to each other in a relationship that has long been taken for granted by the former. And as the father bemoans, the mother bears, while the father bitches, the mother puts up. The resentments and frustrations of the wife drown out in the drunken bombast of the husband. Denzel Washington (or more, his dialogue delivery) has a sense of precision to his presence, regardless of which role he plays (a coach, a naval officer, even a villain). Even when the dialogue is stilted (not here, though), he finds a way to add heft to it, however ridiculous or outlandish it may be. He might not have the expressive range of a De Niro or Al Pacino, he might have, at best, a handful of expressions that he falls back on, but when the words come to his aid, there is no other actor in the business currently that can bring as much sincerety, honesty and commitment to the moment as Denzel Washington. In a tailor-made role as this that unleashes the full spectrum of the character in nothing but talk, Denzel appears completely at ease playing the part of a complex man who cannot be slotted in simplistic moral pigeon-holes. While Denzel is all bluster, Viola Davis stands as the Rock of Gilbraltar in the background weathering all the storms in a dignified silence, who still keeps the manners of laughing to her husband's "jokes" the hundreth time around. This is not a sympathetic role, this is a woman of her times (the 50s), a wife that did as she told, soaked up all the negativity in the family in stoic silence, and still was able to muster a smile at her husband at the end of the day.

'Fences' is a celebration of the written word and the effect it can cast in the able hands (voices) of supreme actors.

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