Wide screen. Originally released as a motion picture in 1969. Special features: New documentary on the making of the film; New conversation, moderated by film scholar Michael B. Gillespie; My father: Gordon Parks, a documentary made on the set of The learning tree; Diary of a Harlem family and The world of Piri Thomas; Unstoppable (2005): a documentary; trailer; How it feels to be black; excerpt from the director's 2005 book, A hungry heart: a memoir. Kyle Johnson, Alex Clarke, Estelle Evans. Based on the novel by Gordon Parks.
Summary:
Based on Parks' semi-autobiographical novel, the film follows the journey of Newt Winger, a teenage descendant of Exodusters growing up in rural Kansas in the 1920s, as he experiences the bittersweet flowering of first love, finds his relationship with a close friend tested, and navigates the injustices embedded within a racist legal and educational system. Exquisitely capturing the bucolic splendor of its heartland setting, this landmark film tempers nostalgia with an incisive understanding of the harsh realities, hard-won lessons, and often wrenching moral choices that shape the road to self-determination of the young Black man at its center.
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