The fact that Netflix’s The Piano Lesson is the work of a debutant director is evident in every frame of the film, in a wonderful way that is. Malcolm Washington’s gone all out with the screen adaptation of August Wilson’s wildly beloved play of the same name. Every emotion comes through in this strange genre blend that referees a fight between two almost-estranged siblings–a contest of their personal interpretations of what a grand piano, a significant family heirloom, actually stands for.
Spoiler Alert
What happens in the film?
A death’s brought the fire back in Boy Willie. The death of Sutter. A post-Depression Pittsburgh is where he’s headed with his buddy Tyson and his truck full of watermelons. He’s going to his uncle Doaker’s place, a place which has been home to his sister Berniece and her daughter Maretha ever since her husband Crawley passed. But that’s not all there is in Doaker’s humble home. There’s also that piano that’s been attached to their family ever since slavery was legal, which isn’t that long ago for a 1936 America. There’s a lot of love between Boy Willie and Berniece, but it’s the kind of love that’s rusted from distance, lack of communication, and misunderstandings. But the most significant thing that’s standing between them now is the piano. Boy Willie’s itching to sell it and stop waiting for the universe to open a door for it. With the money he’d get from selling it, he could buy the recently deceased Sutter’s land and start growing his own legacy. But Berniece is dead set against letting that piano go. While Doaker’s mostly a silent observer, sporadically chiming in to assuage a heated moment, he actually understands both the siblings’ arguments. Even his brother, Wining Boy, freshly back in time to mourn his estranged wife, is sensitive to Boy Willie’s ambition and Berniece’s attachment to the piano. The tension is only exacerbated when Sutter’s ghost shows himself to Berniece and Maretha, which makes Berniece paranoid thinking his brother killed Sutter.
How did the piano come into the Charles family?
The story of the piano’s origin and current circumstances are told to Boy Willie when Doaker wants him to understand why Berniece will never sell it. The piano’s been a memoir of their family’s experience with slavery and subsequently, their freedom from that evil. When Doaker’s grandparents and father were owned by Grandfather Sutter, the piano was an anniversary present Sutter wanted to get from Nolander. Sutter’s slaves were the only commodity he could pay with, so he broke the Charles family up and sent Doaker’s grandmother Berniece, and his father Boy Walter away with Nolander. Their departure affected his wife more than Sutter had expected. And to liven her up again, Doaker’s grandfather had to carve the likeness of his wife and son, two people he missed very much, on that piano. It must’ve been excruciating for him to decorate the piano that cost him his family, and as an expression of his rage, he etched his entire family history on it. Doaker’s brother, Boy Charles, who was father to Boy Willie and Berniece, couldn’t stand the fact that the Sutters still held on to the piano that would live as a reminder of the fact that the Charles family was slaves to the Sutters. So he stole the piano when the Sutters were busy at a 4th of July picnic, something we saw play out at the start of the film. He paid too great a price for that when his house was set on fire by a mob enraged over the stolen piano. Even though he tried to make a run for it and hopped on the Yellow Dog train, the mob caught up to him and gave him and the poor hobos in the boxcar the same fate as his house. What validates and also sort of underscores the presence of Sutter’s ghost in The Piano Lesson is that there’s another ghost lore surrounding Boy Charles and the hobos. When the Sutters kept mysteriously falling into their well and dying, people believed it was the work of the Ghosts of Yellow Dog. They came back to avenge all the pain the Sutters had put them through.
Why Didn’t Boy Willie sell the piano?
Boy Willie’s reason behind wanting to sell the piano is less a motive and more who he is as a person. He’s been eyeing Sutter’s land for a long time. If he gets to buy it, it’ll be his act of reclaiming his family’s honor and his agency as a self-made man. He’s desperate for an opportunity to make something of himself, to build a life and an identity that he can be proud of. It’s not that he isn’t hardworking. He’s hauled those watermelons all the way from Mississippi so he can sell them and earn a third of the money he needs to buy the land. While the other third is his own savings, he needs more, and the piano’s the only thing of material worth that his family’s left him and his sister. A little Boy Willie watched his father lose his life over that piano. But instead of hating or loving it, he sees the musical instrument as an opportunity. His emotional tie to the piano is his father, but there’s another thing his father taught him to love. His father showed him around the fertile land owned by the Sutters and made him touch the magical soil that birthed hope. Boy Willie’s been set on the idea of farming on his own land ever since. Being on the fields is probably the most endearing memory he has with his father. The soil is where he feels the kind of connection with him that transcends death. So, to Boy Willie, selling the piano and buying that land means fulfilling the potential that his father had seen in him. He wants to honor his ancestors by breaking out of the expectations the world has from a poor Black man in the 30s. He wanted respect for himself.
Why Does Berniece Want To Keep The Piano?
There’s been too many tectonic shifts in Berniece’s life. Even the last one was as recent as three years ago, when her husband died. But as everything changed around her, the piano was the only constant. At this point, the piano’s practically family to Berniece. She doesn’t understand it too well at times, but her attachment to it is unconditional. What Boy Willie sees as the token of his father’s fighter spirit, Berniece sees as the haunting reminder of the wayward rage that killed her father. It was Berniece who had to pick up the pieces when Boy Charles left his wife a shattered mess. Berniece and Boy Willie’s mother Mama Ola lived the rest of her life polishing that piano with her blood and tears. At that age, Berniece didn’t understand grief too well. But when Mama Ola passed, grief was all Berniece could associate with that family heirloom. She hit a blockage every time she tried to process that feeling. And then it was piled on by the death of her husband–another loss Berniece couldn’t process. She’d seen rage take her father from her. And then it was Crawley who fell victim to the kind of life that was inflicted on them. When the fight about the fate of the piano aggravates all the wounds she’s been silently enduring, Berniece blames Boy Willie for her husband’s death.
Boy Willie had no hand in Crawley’s unfortunate fate. He tested his luck too much when he pulled his gun on the folks who were after them for the wood they were pilfering. That’s what doomed Crawley. What Berniece feels toward her brother is this complicated feeling of abandonment. She doesn’t want to admit that she’s missed him. She doesn’t want to admit that part of her resents him for surviving the shootout that killed Crawley. Berniece has been reluctantly seeing Pastor Avery. The more he’s been pushing her for her hand in marriage, the more she grows averse to the idea of it. In a way, Avery wants to dictate the terms of her grief over her husband’s death. She’s made to feel that by being alone, she’s choosing to deny her feminine purpose. When Avery pushes her to let go of the pain that’s been holding her back, the look on Berniece’s face communicates that she’s not ready. The last time she played that piano was for her mother. Since then, she’s not touched a key. She’s terrified that it’ll summon the ghosts of her past. But it’s her grief. And Berniece is the kind of woman who doesn’t want to rush herself when she’s pressured by the world. She’s waiting to understand the meaning behind the tunes of that piano when it sings of everyone who came before her.
Why Does Boy Willie Agree To Let Berniece Keep The Piano?
The Piano Lesson’s emotional crescendo needed a spiritual ground. And that’s what Avery provided when he made his mind up about blessing the house. His decision might’ve had something to do with his intention to unburden Berniece so she could be with him fully. But Berniece doesn’t care about all that. All she wants is for Sutter’s spirit to leave her house. The fear of a ghost haunting her home aside, seeing Sutter was the reminder of what her family has gone through when his family exploited them. She’s scared for her little girl. So if it takes giving a rookie reverend a chance to prove his faith, Berniece is willing to give Avery that chance. In a way, she also needed her faith reaffirmed. So when she’s handed that candle as Avery chants his prayers, she holds on to it with the last bit of her hope.
Boy Willie didn’t show up to deal with all that. He showed up to take the piano. He was so determined to get what he came for that even Berniece getting a gun to scare him away had no effect on him. Boy Willie didn’t believe in ghosts. He thought it was all in Berniece’s mind. Earlier in The Piano Lesson, when Boy Willie tried to move the piano and it felt like the house itself was protesting that action, he didn’t think too much of it. But now, as the house practically growls, Boy Willie knows that he doesn’t quite grasp the situation as well as he thought he did. But being attacked by Sutter’s ghost doesn’t terrify him. If anything, that awakens the rage that has been eating away at him. It’s more likely that Boy Willie’s telling the truth when he claims that he didn’t kill Sutter. When Doaker spoke to Wining Boy about it, he mentioned that he’d seen Sutter’s ghost sitting at that piano days before Berniece saw him. Sutter’s ghost arrived at their house before Boy Willie did. He’s here for the piano. And because Boy Willie wants to sell it, it makes sense that Sutter’s ghost is furious at him.
During The Piano Lesson’s ending, Avery’s unseasoned faith loses its battle against the grim energy that’s taken over the house. All Berniece can think of at that moment is her brother, who’s being strangled by Sutter’s ghost. At this moment, she realizes that she can’t win this fight alone. She needs the strength of her ancestors. So by playing the piano and summoning the spirits of her ancestors, what Berniece is essentially acknowledging is that the piano isn’t just a memento of their pain, it’s also a vessel of their strength. She’s been hiding from her history because there’s just too much pain there. But by hiding, she’s only been keeping herself from absorbing all the love that was etched on the piano by her father.
In The Piano Lesson’s ending, the combined strength of the Charles family is what expels Sutter’s spirit. This terrifying process is what it took for Berniece to overcome her fear of looking back. Until now, she associated playing the piano with pain and loss. But now that she’s been shown that the piano also represents the strength of their history, she’s free to feel joy when she plays it with her daughter. Unlike her, Maretha will grow up with happy memories of the family heirloom. How could Boy Willie take that away from the two people he loved the most? All he really wanted was for his family to do better. What he envisioned for the Charles’ was a life that grieved the suffering and was open to happier things. Berniece’s personal and spiritual growth promised just that. And in a way, it may have also freed Boy Willie from the drive to run away from his truth.
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