The Adventures of Huck Finn

Ernest Hemingway once said that all American literature began with a novel by Mark Twain named Huckleberry Finn. There are two obvious reasons why that may be: It is the first great novel to be told in American language, and it is the first great novel to deal honestly and rightly with the subject of race relations. Roger Ebert noted in his review, “The novel has regrettably been under fire in recent years from myopic advocates of Political Correctness, who do not have a bone of irony (or humor) in their bodies, and cannot tell the difference between what is said or done in the novel, and what Twain means by it.”

The book is about a minimally educated outsider white boy, the offspring of an alcoholic, who runs off down the Mississippi with an escaping slave named Jim. Huck contributes to many of the racist looks dominant at that time about Africans, but he has never really thought about them, and during the many days and nights on the river Jim reeducates him.

Huck finally decides that if it is a sin to help a slave escape, he must be a sinner.

The story of Huck and Jim has been told in six or seven earlier movies, and now comes “The Adventures of Huck Finn,” a 1993 beautiful and entertaining version by a young director named Stephen Sommers, who doesn’t stay on the film’s gentle message, but doesn’t avoid it, either. Ebert noted, “The transformation of Huck is there on the screen, although much more time is devoted to the story's picaresque adventures, as Huck and Jim meet a series of colorful characters - including some desperate criminals, some feuding neighbors, and the immortal con men the King and the Duke.”

Huck is played by Elijah Wood, who leniently seems free of charm and other exaggerations of child stars, and makes a stubborn, convincing Huck. Ebert noted, “The real Huck (based on a childhood friend of Twain's) was probably much tougher and had rougher edges, but Huck has been sanitized for years in the movies (just as the Widow Douglas tried to "sivilize" the original).” Jim, the important character in the story, is played by Courtney B. Vance, a New York stage actor who is able to represent sensitivity with which Jim guides Huck out of the brushes of prejudice and sets him on the road of tolerance and decency.

The supporting cast is regularly splendid, especially Jason Robards and Robbie Coltrane, as the King and the Duke, who imitate visitors from England in an attempt to con two innocent sisters out of their tradition. Ebert said, “It was a little eerie, halfway through the movie, to realize that Twain wrote the original American road picture, and that in some way not only all of American literature, but also "Easy Rider," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Five Easy Pieces" and "Thelma & Louise" came out of his novel.”

Ebert admitted, “I read the book for the first time when I was 7, understanding every other word, and I have read it a dozen times since. For me, the best passages are those in which Huck and Jim are alone on the river, debating such curiosities as why the French speak a foreign language, and how many stars there are in the sky, and whether it is all right to steal fruits that are in season if you make a solemn vow not to steal fruits that are out of season. Twain punctuates these passages with lyrical descriptions of the mighty river, and of a thunderstorm that reminds him of barrels rolling down a giant staircase.”

Then Huck and Jim drift onto the subjects of race and slaver, and Huck is able to admit, after explains it to him, that black people have the same feelings as everyone else and are deserving of his respect. This process of Huck’s change is one of the important events in American literature. Some cannot like it and think it should not be taught in schools because Huck, like every boy of his time, use the N word. Ebert is right when he said, “They are very short-sighted.”

Obviously, the movie doesn’t use the word, nor does it really go that far into the heart of Huck’s change. It wants to entertain and not offend. However, it is a good film with strong performances. Nothing in it is wrong, however some depths are lacking. Ebert ended his review by saying, “I admired the performances, and Sommers' sense of time and place, and I hope the movie guides more people toward the book - which contains values that sometimes seem as rare today as when Jim was first teaching them to Huck.”

Honestly, I had seen one version of this novel when I was a junior in High School, but I don’t know which version that was. We did read the book that year as well, but not entirely. We read only parts of the book before my teacher asked for the books back and we watched the movie instead. I think I had seen Doug Walker review this film last year, so I decided to check it out earlier this year, and I loved it. If you have read the book and want to see a good adaptation on it, this is one you should see, it’s a good one.

Check in tomorrow to see what I will review next in “Disney Month 2021.”