The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me! - 1950
Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 04:16PM 
About as true, bleak and prescient as 72 year-old pulp could possibly be regarding today's cultural/political climate. I mean, I thought the last act was too harsh, enraged and perfectly depicted - using a horde of raving amateurs who now look all too familiar - to bear when I first saw it.
Now - post Jan 6 - it's a terrifying prophecy.
Based on the true story of two prisoners - both Black – taken by a mob from a small-town California jail and lynched, this McCarthy era fuck you to any and all notions of peaceable US community got the director blacklisted, even though he shifted the race of the hanged men to white.
The first 3/4 is a heartfelt, subtle, slow-building portrait of the pure evil of the American class system, the indignities proles suffer and the high and mighty arrogance of the cultured class. Here that class incarnates in a '50's version of Fox News, an empty suit spouting empty moralities that inspire the lynchings. The last quarter is anarchy unchained, as the white American mob invades a government space for murder.
Shot on a dime, it showcases simple back-screen projection and every now and then, a bravura composition that drives home the film's themes. The cinema-verite meets Film Noir of the extended riot sequence is pure visual genius.
This is some dark shit. I could barely finish it last night and then zapped all around seeking some antidote. Guess what? Ain't none, and that ain't no metaphor.