He modulates his voice and limns his words with the history of pain and possibility. Nevertheless, Gunn’s performance reflects the complexities of Milner’s earlier depiction. In the film, Williams is more of a typical baddie-a figure whose inability to participate in a coalitional project marks him as shortsighted, if not villainous. Williams and Custer are portrayed as two men with shared aims: the well-being of Black folks in Chicago. In Milner’s original script, Williams is more of a nationalistic bluesman, a creative intellectual like Leadybelly or any of the figures Amiri Baraka wrote about in his revolutionary account Blues People. An early script was written by Ron Milner, one of the most prominent playwrights of the Black Arts Movement. Īs with so many underrecognized Black films of the 1970s and 1980s, The Killing Floor had deep connections to the New York theatre world. Parks had all but left the industry after Paramount had, in Park’s words “deliberately kill” his biopic on the blues legend, Leadbelly. That same year, American Playhouse broadcast Gordon Parks’ adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave. Duke, a prominent stage actor and director, was making the transition to feature length filmmaking and he found himself in good company. Influenced by William Tuttle’s groundbreaking Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919, Duke’s film aired on television in 1984 as a part of PBS’ American Playhouse series. The Killing Floor is a historical drama based on the actual events and people surrounding the Chicago race rebellions of 1919. Gunn’s performance as the problematic Williams invites viewers to reckon with the tangled knot of politics and personal relationships. The collision here is between the union organizer Custer and Williams an anti-union agitator. Custer has just come to the YMCA where Williams is handing out provisions. It is 1919 and white mobs have established strongholds in the city, murdering Black people, forcing the businesses to close and subsequently creating food shortage. “I know what the hell a friend is.” Towards the end of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, Heavy Williams (Moses Gunn), a Black meatpacker who has no interest in the multi-racial union organizing led by Frank Custer (Damien Leake), lets everyone know.
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