A raisin in the sun

Author

Daniel Petrie

Call Number

• DVD DRAMA (CEN)

Edition

Two-DVD special edition.

Languages

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Performers

Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, John Fiedler, Louis Gossett, Jr., Stephen Perry.

Publication Information

[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2018]

Physical Description

2 videodisc (128 minutes) : sound, black & white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (24 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm.)

Audience

Not rated.

Summary

Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be on Broadway and is now an immortal part of the theatrical canon. Two years after its premiere, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. The original stars--including Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee--reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money. Vividly rendering Hansberry's intimate observations on generational conflict and housing discrimination, Petrie's film captures the high stakes, shifting currents, and varieties of experience within black life in midcentury America.

Notes

From the play by Lorraine Hansberry.

Originally released as a motion picture in 1961.

Special features: New, restored 4K digital transfer ; interview from 1961 with playwright/screenwriter Lorraine Hansberry ; new interview with Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine ; episode of Theater Talk from 2002 featuring producer Philip Rose and actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis ; excerpt from Black Theatre : the Making of a Movement (1978), with a new introduction by director Woodie King Jr. ; new interview with film scholar Mia Mask, coeditor of Poitier Revisited ; interview from 2002 with director Daniel Petrie ; trailer.