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for a couple of years now.In 1976, Andrew Britton wrong a long and careful vindication of the film, but his essay was not widely read. Britton noted how many of the reviewers didn't seem to have paid much attention to the film itself, given how many simple errors about the plot and character relationships filled their reviews. More famously (if academic press books by film scholars can qualify as "famous"), Britton's teacher and colleague Robin Wood devoted a chapter of Sexual Politics and Narrative Film
to Mandingo, which is where I first heard about the movie.After watching Mandingo, I wanted to see if anybody had written about it more recently, especially within the film blogosphere, and that's when I discovered some real gems. I can't say I loved the film in the way some people have, but I certainly think the original critics who hated it missed the mark completely. It's a remarkable corrective to and comment on such things as Gone with the Wind, and some moments reminded me strongly of Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn!, particularly in the way both movies complicate the viewer's sympathies for the white protagonist.
But my purpose here is simply to point you toward some excellent online writings about the film:
"The Eyes We Cannot Shut: Richard Fleischer's Mandingo" by Robert Keser:
Without sentimentality or official pieties, Fleisch1 Comments on Mandingo, last added: 1/31/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
I watched Mandingo in the wake of the racism shitstorm last year, after doing some digging and finding the sort of essays you quote from (the exact same ones in a couple of cases). I thought they were bang on, to the extent that the misreading of it as exploitation seems significant. Like you, I wouldn't say I *loved* it, but it's far from the cheap, crass exploitation flick many seem to take it as.