While sitting in a subway car, Clay glances out the window and catches the eye of Lula. Before long, Lula is in the subway car and the fireworks begin.

Like many plays of the 1960s, DUTCHMAN is not afraid of being provocative. It deals with not only issues of race, but sexuality in a very frank manner. Despite being made before the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) started their ratings system, the film has a frankness that would still make it provocative to even today's jaded audiences.

Shirley Knight gives a livewire performance that is absolutely fearless. Al Freeman, Jr. plays his character honestly and with complete conviction. Both actors are unafraid to explore the inner depths of this material. The result is absolutely riveting.

Today, when even an actor of Denzel Washington's stature will not be seen kissing a white woman on screen, Freeman and Knight pull few stops here. The result is a film that dares to make the viewer uncomfortable. Recent independent efforts like MONSTER'S BALL, L.I.E., STORYTELLING and IRREVERSIBLE might go there, but don't expect to see this in a mainstream film of today.

Adding to the film's intensity is the fact that Clay and Lula are the only characters that speak in the film. Also, all of the action takes place inside a hot subway car giving the film a claustrophobic feel. Without revealing too much of the dramatic details, things get pretty intense inside there.

Despite being filmmed in Britain with a more polished look, the DUTCHMAN is clearly within the tradition of the maverick independent films of the early 1960s like SHADOWS and THE CONNECTION.

For her work in the film, Shirley Knight won the prestigious Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 1967 Venice Film Festival. Anthony Harvey, future Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee for THE LION IN WINTER directed the film. Multiple Academy Award winner John Barry did the haunting score.

If you're looking for light, Disney fare, you're best to stay away. However, if you're looking for a film that will stir your intellect as well as your emotions, DUTCHMAN should definitely be high on your viewing list. Just be prepared for the ride.


1 Hour of '60s Magic   July 5, 2000
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

Dutchman is a play by LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) set to this 1966 film starring Shirley Knight. First thing that strikes you is Knight's Sexyness with a capital S. She's all over the screen and Al Freeman Jr. as well. The whole hourlong Kerouacesque meditation on life, sex, and race plays out in black and white (pun intended) in a subway car. Bears some similarity to its contemporary, The Incident (Martin Sheen), but Dutchman goes far deeper in its artistic eloquence.

The underlying beatnik stream-of-consciousness dialectic between Lula and Clay, like much work of the '60s era, says much more than it's consciously aware of. What would happen if someone suddenly becomes "Authentic" within the usually forced inauthentistic realm of a subway car, and prompts her cohort to do the same? I.e. Lula and Clay say and do Exactly as their true selves dictate. And the concept succeeds in its spontaneity, intensity, and message. Essentially a New York underground (pun intended) work of high-art. Needless to say it's only "contrived" in Leonard Maltin's nerdish mind.