Sounder (1972)

Academy Awards, USA
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1973	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role Paul Winfield
			Best Actress in a Leading Role Cicely Tyson
			Best Picture Robert B. Radnitz
			Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Lonne Elder III

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Martin Ritt
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Koch Vision)

Simple, moving story of black sharecroppers in Louisiana during the Great Depression. Paul Winfield is the father of a family just barely scraping by, living in a shack and working for a rich, white farmer. One day he is arrested for stealing food, a charge he does not deny, and is sentenced to a year of hard labor. His wife and his children are left behind to bring in the crop alone. The oldest son, Kevin Hooks, does a lot of growing up in that time, including a long trek by foot to find his father at a prison camp. Instead, he finds a teacher and his own future. It is a bit romanticized at times, and some of the amateur actors, especially the children, hurt rather than help, but in such a strong character driven story, those deficiencies are easy to overlook.