Review of Emperor Jones (1933) by William W — 06 Sep 2014

In this cinematic adaption of the Eugene O'Neil play, Paul Robeson is remarkable as the conniving and commanding Brutus Jones. Most of the movie explores the backstory the play only mentioned, including his journey from womanizing and gambling railroad porter to murderer to Emperor of a Caribbean island. The movie also adds many opportunities for Robeson to showcase his admittedly incredible singing voice. The final half hour of the movie is the bulk of the play itself, as Emperor Jones finds out he has pushed the people of his domain too far.

I found myself confused at first by Jones, mostly because Robeson is so likable in the role and it was hard to tell that he was depicting a not so honorable man. It becomes much more clear who the character really is after a crap game gone wrong. There are several differences between the play and the movie, including new characters and situations in the backstory, and an abbreviated version of his encounters in the woods, including a particularly conspicuous cut scene. The reverse recapitulation of the history of Africans and their descendents in the Americas is less apparent in the movie because of this and I think it makes Jones a little less sympathetic.

One of the advantages of the play only referencing what happened to him in the past is the limiting of set pieces to his palace and the island woods. The first hour of the movie greatly expands on the set pieces. Without dramatizing the backstory, the movie would have been much, much shorter, but I think this dramatization causes the story to lose some of its urgency. However, once Emperor Jones finally embarked on his journey in the woods, the movie came alive for me, and it was very similar to how I visualized it when reading the play.