Daniel Petrie takes the stage play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry based on a Langston Hughes poem and gives it the deserved weight it demands. The performances carry the weight of the six generations of the Younger family and we see this, no we feel it deeply in the scene when Walter Lee tells Mr. Lindner that they will be moving into the house. Petrie uses stillness in the composition to show exactly what Walter Lee is standing for: his family. The director uses shots throughout the film that are built off of the emotional content of the characters. Walter Lee is finally standing for his family and not just himself thus, a stable camera with no movement allows him to be firmly planting the idea into the audience.
Petrie then uses a kinetic camera in the apartment to show the hectic nature of Walter Lee while he seeks to bury the pain of his disappointment with booze and anger. The composition will begin in a wide shot then move into a close up as Walter Lee comes closer to the camera than the other characters, and then he moves away. The camera movement and placing of Walter shows how he is dominating everyone in the scene where he tells them he is going to take the money from Mr. Lindner. And, when he leaves for the bedroom all of the energy has died. The camera is as still as everyone in the room as if there were a car crash and the dust has finally settled. We feel Walter Lee's consuming everyone in this scene.
This film is character driven and makes us of minimal sets in order to show the boxed in life the family lives in their apartment, the escapism at the bar for Walter Lee and the dream of the new home and how spacious this life will be. Petrie ensures our understanding of their current life and the directions it could possibly take. Thus, when Lena says goodbye with a hand gesture as if to caress her dead husband's face and then grabs a potted plant we fully understand that death has now become the seed of new life ready to be planted.
