Sidney Poitier wasn’t solely a pioneer or merely among his generation’s best actors; he was a complicated, flawed human, prone to mistakes and foibles. But you wouldn’t know the depth of those flaws or how lasting his mistakes were by watching the Apple TV+ documentary “Sidney.”
This documentary should be better, richer, and more comprehensive. It tells the self-made, rags-to-riches story of a singular talent through his own words. His contemporaries appear to offer their recollections; the generation he inspired fawns over him. Even the people he hurt get a tiny say. You also have the movies: boundary-pushing projects from the 1960s — like “The Defiant Ones,” “In the Heat of the Night,” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” which intertwined with the Civil Rights Movement — once deemed progressive, now seen as regressive.
READ MORE: TIFF 2022: 16 Must-See Films To See At The Toronto Film Festival
In Reginald Hudlin’s attempt to make a warts-and-all documentary about a screen legend, he mostly hews closely to the hagiographic legend. Poitier (still living at the time) provides the details of his early life through narration: he was born two months premature and given such a slim chance of survival that his father departed to get a shoebox to bury him in. He grew up on Cat Island, Bahamas, a tomato farming junction without running water, electricity, or even mirrors. He lived among mostly Black people, shielding him from the effects of Jim Crow racism until he moved to Florida, where he came face-to-face with the Ku Klux Klan. The mythology of Poitier, told in his words with his elegant prose and accent, casts an early spell quickly broken when the camera suddenly cuts to Oprah Winfrey.
“Sidney” is a Harpo Production, Winfrey’s studio, and Hudlin’s documentary never fails to remind you who backed it. Because why, in the section where Poitier is discussing the racism he faced as a Black-Bahamian immigrant living in Florida, is Winfrey the first talking head we hear from? Poitier then guides us through his early life in New York City, where he became a dishwasher and experienced such a harsh rejection from the American Negro Theater that it ignited his desire to become an actor. And just as we’re settling in again, Greg Tate, a second talking head, appears. Winfrey and Tate aren’t necessarily ineffective in this film, but they’re the usual suspects. And for a documentary that begins with Poitier’s own memories from his own perspective, it strikes an odd note for these two – tangentially connected to him at best – to form what’s meant to be a far-ranging and incisive overview of his life and career.
There’s friction in Hudlin’s film between the story that needs to be told and the accepted version. It occurs after the first 20 minutes of “Sidney,” when Hudlin intermingles Poitier’s family with his ascent toward stardom. Five of his six daughters appear and offer memories of their father. Poitier recounts the valley after his breakthrough performance in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “No Way Out” (the first movie his parents ever saw in a theater) and the subsequent roles he turned down, such as playing a janitor, because he didn’t want to be Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Morland or Hattie McDaniel — actors known for playing “humorous” racial stereotypes and domestics. The documentary isn’t judgmental of those actors; it empathizes with their limited opportunities. But it uses their careers as a way to show Poitier’s resolve.
READ MORE: Fall 2022 Preview: 60+ Must-See Films To Watch
For “Sidney,” Black actors as dramatic leads, except Paul Robeson, seemingly didn’t exist. This slant ignores someone like Josephine Baker and creates an impression that Poitier was somehow magical. While he was the first top-of-the-marquee star, other Black actors did exceptional dramatic work (Dorothy Dandridge being a primary example). The only one of Poitier’s contemporaries who’s mentioned is Harry Belafonte. And in fits and starts, “Sidney” aims to outline the kinship and disagreements these two leading men faced. These connections, however, occur only sparingly and with very little insight into their disagreements – apart from how they should have memorialized Martin Luther King Jr after his assassination. Their fissures, centered around their varying levels of activism during the Civil Right Movement, of which Poitier was a critical figure, are merely gestured at.
Too often, “Sidney” is a bundle of gestures. Nowhere is that more felt than when it talks about Poitier’s first marriage with his ex-wife, Juanita Hardy, and his extramarital affair with Diahann Carroll. Hudlin gestures to include Hardy’s thoughts by interviewing her, where she mainly discusses how she guided her ex-husband financially — by selling a fur coat he gifted her and reinvesting the money into the stage production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” — and professionally. When she does discuss Poitier’s affair with Carroll, the cuts and the fades, which seemingly, in its editing, evade the difficult truth, arrive jarringly. Likewise, the Carroll affair, which saw her divorce her husband only for Poitier to remain with his wife, never gets to the level of the actor’s emotional manipulation of the actress. Instead, a brief and generous clip of Carroll being diplomatic about their failed relationship is included.
The same half-gestures occur around his movies. “The Defiant Ones” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” are painted as revolutionary for their time, with detractors that have only arisen recently. And while a nod is given toward James Baldwin’s criticism of the former movie being a “Magical Negro” template, the film treats his critiques in a vacuum. Hudlin also skips over the murkier parts of Poitier’s directorial career that began glowingly with the Western “Buck and the Preacher” and included comedies that starred Bill Cosby. In fact, when one of the talking heads teases how Poitier worked with a radical comedian only to say Richard Pryor in “Stir Crazy,” you feel the pang of their bait and switch. This movie will not and does not thoroughly interrogate any component of Poitier’s life that could permanently damage his legacy. It too often centers on Winfrey. And it does not tell you many stories that have not been told before. It is celebratory, but it is not human.
Apart from the slick visuals and inventive use of split screens, the strongest components are the words of the actors who followed in Poitier’s footsteps: Halle Berry and Denzel Washington, two Black movie stars who earned Oscar-winning performances and later became directors themselves. They’re funny, reverent, and clear-eyed about his impact. And they’re a fitting period at the end of Poitier’s life. “Sidney” functions as a loving memorial to the pioneering Black movie star who passed earlier this year, but it never suffices as more than a tepid first draft of his life. And it is never as groundbreaking as Poitier’s best work. [C]
Follow along with all our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
