Denzel Washington’s ‘Fences’ is a period drama film about Troy Maxson (Washington), a sanitation worker who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife Rose and son Cory in 1950.
What’s the catch? Troy was a pro baseball player in his younger days who never got the chance to play since he was too old by the time the opportunity arose.
Cory, his son, now wants the same chance. The rest of the film focuses on whether Troy encourages Cory to pursue his dream of making it big in the world of football.
Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Jovan Adepo, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby, and others star in the 2016 film, which is packed with excellent performances.
The intriguing screenplay, along with the setting of 1950s Pittsburgh, gives us a clear perspective of the physical and emotional challenges of a working-class Black family during that time period, while also shedding light on Troy’s family dynamics.
Keeping this in mind, let us dive into whether ‘Fences’ is based on a true story!
Is Fences Based on a True Story?
No, ‘Fences’ is inspired by a factual story. It is based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of the same name from 1987.
Fences, a play written by August Wilson in 1985 as part of his “Pittsburgh Cycle” series, served as the inspiration for Denzel Washington’s 2016 film. To be true to the original tale, the filmmakers employed Wilson’s playscript, hence Wilson is the only writer credited for Fences.
In 1987, the play received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. Wilson drew inspiration for the stage play from the experiences of African Americans in Pittsburgh during the 1950s, but the characters are not directly based on real-life people.
Troy Maxson of Fences is Loosely Based on Boxer Charley Burley
Even though Denzel Washington’s character in Fences is not based on a real person, August Wilson was inspired to develop Troy Maxson by boxer Charley Burley.
According to Black Perspectives, Burley was Wilson’s older neighbor when he was younger, and he functioned as a surrogate father figure to him because Wilson and his own father sometimes disagreed. Burley was a fantastic boxer with a fantastic winning record. Unfortunately, similar to Troy in Fences, financial difficulties and color barriers caused him to retire and work as a garbage collector in Pittsburgh.
What Is Fences About?
In the film, Troy Maxson is never selected for the major leagues, just as his real-life counterpart Charley Burley was never given the opportunity to fight in Major League Baseball. Burley later became a sanitation worker, a fate shared by the character of Troy. While it is evident in the film that he was too old by the time leagues decided to allow players of color in, he claims he was denied because he was black.
Despite being chained to a rather dormant part of Troy’s mind, the resulting pain and anger frequently burst out in the worst of ways, negatively affecting those around him emotionally, especially his wife Rose, who has also sacrificed so much for him in their 18-year marriage, and, much worse, his son Cory, who aspires to be a football player.
Troy is almost unconsciously unable to let his son prosper from what was denied to him. Cory’s recruitment into his college football squad, to be specific. Whether Troy overcomes this impediment, and if so, how, is what ‘Fences’ deals with; an admirably chosen title that stands for people and feelings that we need inside and those that we should avoid.
Going deeper into the organic nature of ‘Fences’ and its characters, Viola Davis told NPR that the film was a journey or “portrait” of not just a woman, but womanhood itself, with its smiles and turmoils. Denzel, on the other hand, remarked that, although being divisive to the point of hatred, Troy’s trajectory was spiritual, “from hell to hallelujah.”
Denzel remarked in an interview, “One of the first things I wrote down on the script as I was starting to do rehearsals for the play six years ago — it just hit me, I wrote, ‘From hell to hallelujah.'”
“And early in the play, he’s always saying, ‘Aw, hell.'” the multifaceted personality added. This is terrible. Oh, heck with that. This is terrible. By the end of the act, he’s yelling “hallelujah!” So the character’s story was a spiritual arc for me.
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If God was watching, he’d be saying, ‘OK, that’s as far as he’ll be able to go.'” This is in stark contrast to our perception of Troy, who, to use his own words from the film, wrestled Death and won (albeit Death did pledge to return). So his fault, his belief that he can fight Death, is what makes him more human, and his path is similar to Denzel’s arc for the character.