Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, Lisa will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, we have an adaptation of a William Faulkner short story.

Episode #13: Barn Burning

(Dir by Peter Werner, originally aired in 1980)

The year is 1895 and everyone in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi knows that Abner Snopes (Tommy Lee Jones) is no good.  The taciturn and bitter Abner is notorious for burning down the barns of those who he feels have mistreated him.  When Abner is dragged into the Justice of the Peace’s courtroom (which also happens to be a general store), he’s only acquitted because the judge and the prosecutor realize it would be unfair to force Abner’s young son, Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes (Shawn Whittington), to testify against him.  Abner and his family are ordered to move to another town but Abner avoids any legal punishment.  Despite that, Abner still accuses Sarty of thinking about betraying him.

This episode follows Sarty as he tries to understand his abusive father, a man who is offended over being told to wash a rug that he intentionally damaged that he plots to burn down another barn.  (The owner of the rug is played by Jimmy Faulkner, the grandson of William Faulkner.)  Sarty wants his father’s love but it soon becomes clear that Abner is too angry and resentful to love anyone.  The story ends with a fire and an ambiguous tragedy, leaving both the fate of Abner and the future of Sarty unclear.

With his shifting viewpoints and his internalized style of narration, William Faulkner is not an easy writer to adapt to the screen.  With Barn Burning, director Peter Werner takes a straight-forward approach to Faulkner’s short story.  While Werner’s film might lack the nuance that was brought to the tale by Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness style, it does work as a portrait of living with an angry man who is determined to let the world know that he’s not going to be pushed around anymore.  Tommy Lee Jones gives a strong, intimidating, and ultimately charismatic performance as Abner, a tyrant who only shows emotion when he feels that he’s been treated disrespectfully.  The story takes place in the ruins of the Old South and capture the struggle between the forced gentility of the old aristocracy and the crassness of the future, represented by Abner and his family.

This was a strong episode that truly did justice to William Faulkner’s short story.