Man Friday (1975 film)
| Man Friday | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Jack Gold |
| Produced by | Gerald Green |
| Written by | Adrian Mitchell |
| Starring |
Peter O'Toole: Robinson Crusoe Richard Roundtree: Man Friday |
| Music by | Carl Davis |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | Avco Embassy Pictures |
|
Release date
|
1975 |
|
Running time
|
115 minutes |
| Country | United States, United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Man Friday is a 1975 British/American film. It is adapted from the 1973 play by Adrian Mitchell based on Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe, but reverses the roles, portraying Crusoe as a blunt, stiff Englishman, while the native he calls Man Friday is much more intelligent and empathic. The film can be regarded as being critical of western civilization, against which it draws a contrasting picture of Caribbean tribal life.
Friday and three of his friends arrive in a canoe on the island on which Crusoe has been stranded for years. Crusoe thinks they are cannibals, killing Friday's friends and taking the latter to his camp as a .
Friday is very quick to learn the English language. Crusoe then tries to teach him Western concepts like property, sports, punishment, fear of God and so on, but Friday's reaction is only one of bewilderment and amusement. He begins to question and mock these concepts that seem senseless and destructive to him. One day he rebels, refusing to be a slave anymore. After some conflict, Crusoe has to admit that he could not live in solitude anymore, so he concedes in regarding Friday as a human being, although not as an equal. To do so, he starts to pay Friday one gold coin per day for his labour—an ambivalent sign of respect, as there is no use for money on the remote island.
When an English ship appears, Crusoe is overjoyed. Two men arrive in a boat and are invited for dinner but it turns out that they are slave traders who want to capture both Crusoe and Friday. So the latter collaborate in killing the intruders when their violent motives are revealed, and the ship sails away, leaving the protagonists stranded as before. For a while, a kind of friendship develops between Crusoe and Friday. Friday thinks that he maybe can teach Crusoe his more relaxed way of living, and not to be controlled by "thoughts of power, guilt and fear", which are very strong traits in Crusoe's personality.
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