Sounder (1972) on Netflix
In 1933 Louisiana, the Morgans are sharecroppers on another man's land. David Lee, the oldest child, helps his mother Rebecca on the farm and hunts with the family dog Sounder.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.5/105,394 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Featurette
Plot summary
Nathan Lee Morgan and his wife Rebecca are sharecroppers in rural Louisiana during the Depression, growing sugar cane on land owned by a white landlord. Their oldest son David Lee helps on the farm and attends school between chores. One evening a raccoon hunt ends with nothing to eat, but the next morning the children wake to the smell of ham. After a community baseball game, the sheriff and his deputies are waiting at the house and take Nathan away on a charge of stealing the ham from a nearby smokehouse. Sounder chases the wagon, is shot, and disappears, and David cannot find him. With Nathan sentenced to a year of hard labor, David, his brother Earl and his sister Josie Mae must help Rebecca harvest the crop.
Cast
- Eric Hooksas Earl Morgan
- Teddy Airhartas Mr. Perkins
- Richard Durhamas Perkins' Foreman
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sounder (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Sounder was the first film to earn Oscar-nominated performances from two black actors: Paul Winfield for Best Actor and Cicely Tyson for Best Actress. The next film to do it was What's Love Got to Do with It in 1993, with Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett.
- Sounder's release leaned on an unusual marketing push: Radnitz personally visited 35 cities and held over 500 screenings, with 60 simultaneous sneak previews in New York City, and 20th Century Fox spent over $1 million promoting the film, according to Variety.
- Music journalist Robert Christgau called Taj Mahal's Sounder soundtrack the first soundtrack ever patterned after a field recording, with its hums, moans, claps and plucked fragments all performed in the key of Lightnin' Hopkins' gospel blues song "Needed Time".
