A Death in the Family (US, 2002)


Figure 1.--This is Rufus in happy times before his father is killed in an accident. He wears a sailor suit and the cap he dislikes so much. Austin Wolff who played Rufus did a wonderful job.

PBS in 2002 aired an excellent production of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family. Producer/director Gil Cates excellent adaptation is one of those all too few remakes of a classic story that is better than the original. The result is a sensitive depiction of a young family's struggle to cope with the tragic death of the hisband and father. Much of the success of the film is the tender depiction of the father's relationship with his 7-year old son Rufus and his wife. The production is set in Knoxville Tennessee during 1915 and makes a good faith effort to stay truthful to the Agrr story. Jay Follet engagingly teaches his son to steer a car. Rufus wears a kneepants sailor suit and long stockings. Rufus is only 7, but growing up. He no longer wants to kiss his dad goodnight. He also doesn't like the sailor cap his mother makes him wear. It is his sailor cap though that takes center stage in the film. He dislikes the cap and hides it when he goes to school because the other children, who wear flat caps, tease him about it. After his father treats him to a movie, he promises to get mother to buy him a new cap. His maiden Aunt Hannah does buy Rufus a new cap which horrifies his mother, calling it "flamboyant". She just refers to it as a cao without using the term "flat cap". Strangely she uses the term cap as if Rufus' sailor cap was not also a cap. I'm not sure just how Agee wrote this sequence. Rufus does not know what that means, but his mother eventually lets him wear it. Austin Wolff who played Rufus did a wonderful job.

Filmology

PBS in 2002 aired an excellent production of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family. The film is based upon James Agee's unfinished autobigraphical novel which was published posthumously after Agee's heart attack at the age of only 45. Producer/director Gil Cates excellent adaptation is one of those all too few remakes of a classic story that is better than the original.

Cast

Jay Follet engagingly teaches his son to steer a car. The little boy playing Rufus is Austin Wolff. He did a wonderful job in the film. A reader tells us, "I do not know if Austin Wolff has done much else but having seen the film I thought it a good performance for such a small lad."

Setting

The production is set in Knoxville Tennessee during 1915 and makes a good faith effort to stay truthful to the Agee story.


Figure 2.--The older boys at school are bullying Rufus here about his cap which he tried to hide under his shirt.

Plot

The film is a sensitive depiction of a young family's struggle to cope with the tragic death of the hisband and father. The story concerns a young married couple in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1915. The major characters are Mary and Jay Follet and their seven-year-old son, Rufus. Annabeth Gish plays the mother, John Slattery the father, and Austin Wolff the boy. Jay Follet has a fatal accident when he drives his model T Ford at night to visit his father who he believes is about to die but who ironically lives while the visitor crashes his car. The victim has been inveigeled to visit his father by an unreliable and alcoholic brother, Ralph Follet, who misjudges the seriousness of his father's chronic illness. The emotional heart of the drama is the impact Jay's death has on both his wife, Mary, and his son, Rufus. Rufus is a fictional portrayal of the author, James Agee, as a boy confronting the unexpected loss of his father. It is a classic and poignant story. Much of the success of the film is the tender depiction of the father's relationship with his 7-year old son Rufus and his wife. Rufus wears a kneepants sailor suit and long stockings. Rufus is only 7, but growing up. He no longer wants to kiss his dad goodnight.

Clothing

The director, Gilbert Cates, takes a certain care with the period costumes and there are some fairly accurate details in the portrayal of boys' clothing in the film. All the boys wear either knickers or knee pants with long black stockings, but unfortunately the costume designer (Peggy Farrell) substitutes modern black nylon tights for the opaque black cotton stockings which boys actually wore in 1915. Thus the leg wear of the boys is unconvincing because the tights are too sheer and too shiny to look authentic. In the first shot we see Rufus playing on the steps of his house with a toy train. He wears a sailor suit with a middy blouse and neck scarf and what are meant to look like black stockings and hightop shoes. Rufus' makes him wear a sailor cap with a little ribbon. It is his sailor cap though that takes center stage in the film. He dislikes the cap and hides it when he goes to school because the other children, who wear flat caps, tease him about it. After his father treats him to a movie, he promises to get mother to buy him a new cap. His maiden Aunt Hannah does buy Rufus a new cap which horrifies his mother, calling it "flamboyant". She just refers to it as a cao without using the term "flat cap". Strangely she uses the term cap as if Rufus' sailor cap was not also a cap. I'm not sure just how Agee wrote this sequence. Rufus does not know what that means, but his mother eventually lets him wear it. The older boys wear knickers, shirts, and, usually, suspenders. But, again, they seem to be wearing nylon tights under their knickers rather than the cotton black stockings which would have been standard in 1915.






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Created: December 21, 2003
Last updated: 5:38 PM 7/16/2008