Confectioners' Lectures

WHITE DOG SAMUEL FULLER 1982

To dance with the white dog is a televised affair, but Fuller is a cineaste's cineman, so you (who?) can bet I saw this at a retrospective screening in New York. Maybe Brooklyn. Maybe BAM. Paired with Now!, a black and white short of comparably unsubtle intentions, the mood was set for irevolucion! Actually it was set for late-camp monster-horror when in the first 2 minutes: a bereted and boyish fashionista gingerly scoops off the dimly-lit asphalt the WHITE DOG that she just ran over, argues with a creepily jewey ($) veterinarian staff and brings the hulking albino German shepherd home to protect her from a poofy-haired boyfriend and a most invasive sexual predator(1). But when she realizes that by white dog, the Film was speaking racially and by that I mean racistly, she takes the poor hateful pooch to an animal trainer for the stars(2) only to have him turn her out. Cue a very sexy and decidedly ANTI-hate (Roots alum/black/privately gay) Paul Winfield: he KNOWS he's got to teach this dog a thing'r 3 about L.O.V.E. and does most handily.
Or does he?
Maybe you should watch the film?
Maybe I should explain.
The titular character is a motherfucking racist who attacks and mauls members of the darker nation. How now brown (er...black and tan) cow? Seems he was trained that a way by his previous owner. Winfield theorizes that the sleaze paid homeless black winos to continuously beat the dog throughout his developing years. As he got older he came to recognize dark skin as the enemy. But isn't there a metaphor lurking around here? Regarding the superficial fixation on Colour that hate doth possess, Sam.Ful makes the case that we're conditioned to fear our fellow man as his or her dark skin is reinforced as a signifier of threat. The last two minutes however, tell a subtler tail that I won't SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT spoil by describing. Sufficing to say, this is a social allegory that looks transparently simplistic on the one angle and gracefully executed on the 2. But Fuller knows how to stretch a yarn, throw in a few loopy non sequiturs--posing as cringe-worthy exposition of course, color coordinate (speaking art decoratively now, not racistly), and handle a camera but good. Great characters, funny hair, and a canine character that demands as much emotional investment as any anti-hero this side of, let's say, and I'm self-referencing here apparently, The Searchers' Ethan Edwards makes 3 reasons to rent or otherwise accrue this ['muthafucka'].


1. Or as the arresting officer says "that's the same damned rapist I nabbed last year"--the film's BIGest laugh!)

2. Paraphrase: "Remember when the Duke reaches into that pit of rattlers in True Grit? That was my hand. My hand gave the Duke an Oscar!" c/o Burl Ives!