This piece is from a critical reading and writing course I took. In this course, we analyzed some texts and we were asked to write how we would transform these texts from a book to the big screen.
For this piece, I was able to put together my love for creative writing and screenwriting to try to bring this phenomenal story to life. The story has a theme of slavery as it is a novel written by a slave from his perspective, so I had to make sure I was being sensitive to the material. I picked a part of the book I felt was important to the story as a whole, and I was able to describe what it would look like to me if it played as a movie.
An Old Slaves Tale
If directing a movie on the book: The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass, I would pick chapter 7. This chapter holds a lot of emotion and allows us to understand some of the characters in this novel more clearly. This chapter also gives us a deeper glimpse into the things that Fredrick had to go through to learn. I would make this scene stand out in a way that the suffering and discrimination Fredrick endured in those moments are felt by every member of the audience. This is because it is important to understand our history whether it is a pleasant one or not. Just hearing the stories may not do the job, however, a movie can set off a spark of emotion and that is what I will aim for with this scene.
It will start out cold and bleak. The lighting set low as it is a somber scene. This is to give off a calm vibe to the audience and direct their moods in the direction of the mood of the scene. Young Fredrick will be stood in a house looking distraught as though he had been caught doing something bad. In his small hands will be a newspaper which is violently snatched from him by his flaming eyed mistress. She is extremely angry, and her eyes are furiously moving between Fredrick and the paper now in her hand like she was trying to understand the situation. The silence between the two is extremely loud. This silence will be there to exaggerate the tension between Fredrick and his mistress. This will create suspense and pique the curiosity of the viewers as they will be wondering what could happen next. Fredrick looks at her lost and disappointed before the screen goes black. A very soft reminiscent tune starts to play, and a brighter part is shown. The use of bright lighting is to convey happiness and still draw on the curiosity of the audience. It is a flashback in the same house but what was on screen would be almost unbelievable to the viewers. This part shows when a slightly younger Fredrick first coming to live with this same mistress. It shows snippets of her smiling and helping people around her. It also shows her teaching Fredrick the alphabet. The lighting and mood change to a low one. This change in moods is to show the fact that something sad is happening. It signifies the change in attitude the mistress had. The music becomes harsher as a part is shown where she and her husband are seen arguing over her teaching Fredrick. She is then seen battling her husband and society’s opinion that treating slaves as a human was criminally wrong. A scene of her seemingly accepting her fate as a slave owner was the end of this flashback because it turned back to the scene of the cold faced mistress. Now the silence had been broken and she was lecturing Fredrick on the fact that he was not allowed to attempt to further any sort of education. The next parts will show Fredrick completing some chores and sneaking in a read of whatever whenever he could. There will also be a part that showed how he was called in to give an account on himself whenever he was gone for too long a period.
The next scene is a light one with Fredrick walking down the street and meeting some white boys, these boys were clad in school uniforms. This scene shows Fredrick making friends with them to get information from them. He would take some bread which he could have and give it to them in return for some knowledge on what they were learning. There will be soft happy music as his plan seems to be working. The next scene is quiet and all that can be heard is the sound of Fredricks conversation with the boys and some distant background noise. Here Fredrick expresses his despair and desire to be free and these white boys show sympathy by consoling him. His belongings in this scene are dropped and the book he is holding is zoomed into so the audience can read the title. The book is called “The Columbian Orator”.
I picked this part because it has a lot to do with Fredrick Douglass’s story. Had he not learnt those first alphabets from his mistress, he probably would never had had the chance to learn much at all. The actions in this part/scene have so much meaning behind them. We can clearly see how at first the mistress was an amazing lazy who was always smiling and willing to give wherever she could. This character however this not what we see in her interactions with Fredrick presently. The use of flashback was necessary because her current character could not be the only thing, we would use to judge her. The brief look into who she was before allows the audience to understand her character and the role she played in Fredricks life more. Rather than seeing her as just the wicked mistress, we are also able to see her as the person who started off Fredricks education by teaching him the alphabet despite her husband’s strong wishes for her not to.
This scene also proves Fredricks love for education. It was not normal back then for slaves to be educated but this was something Fredrick strived for. He wanted nothing more than to be free and did not understand why this was not possible. W see this in the conversation he had with the white boys who he had employed without their knowledge to teach him. He smartly exchanged some bread for some knowledge. This shows his braveness as well as other children of color may have been too afraid to even strike up conversation with these white kids. Yet here Fredrick was using them to his advantage.
Finally, ending the scene with the zoom in to the book he carried with him, “The Columbian Operator”, emphasizes its great importance to the story. This is because this book impacted Fredricks life greatly which is why it needed its own time in the spotlight as well. This book is a dialogue between a slave and his owner. The slave had runaway about three times previously and in a conversation with his master, the slaves proper English and smart replies resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave by the master. This book also opened Fredricks eyes to Sheridan’s speeches on behalf of catholic emancipation. This book showed Fredrick the wickedness behind the mere thought of slavery. He realized that these people had gone to Africa and bought them and brought them to the new land and made them work inhumanely. He began to hate the enslavers and the situation he was forced to be in because of the color of his skin. This book served as an important part of Fredricks life as without its slavery to him would have just been the “normal” way of the world.