UPDATE: Vanity Fair has our first look images (below).
EARLIER: “The Piano Lesson” is getting Oscar buzz, and it’s set to premiere at Telluride and Toronto in September. However, I’m told that it is not Netflix’s top priority this awards season. Instead, the streaming giant is betting all of its chips on Jacques Audiard’s Cannes sensation, “Emilia Perez” — good call.
Washington (son of Denzel) is making his directorial debut here. What an ambitious way to make your first film, adapting for the screen a story by famed playwright August Wilson. The cast is also stacked with big names, including Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, and Danielle Deadwyler.
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, “The Piano Lesson” follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, that documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor.
The film carries over much of the cast from the show’s recent Broadway revival. If I were Netflix, I’d campaign hard for Samuel L. Jackson, who got raves for his stage performance, and has never won an Oscar.
In fact, I don’t believe there will be a better awards season narrative than a push to finally give Jackson his much-deserved statuette. Jackson, a legendary actor, who should have won for “Pulp Fiction,” “Jungle Fever” and “Django Unchained”, is on course to finally make that happen. That is, if all things go according to plan, and the film doesn’t get outright panned by critics.
Denzel Washington is producing the film, as he was entrusted by the Wilson estate, in the 2010s, to be in charge of bringing the playwright’s plays to the big screen. So far, we’ve had “Fences,” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”
