Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Fences
2016 · Denzel Washington · Fences on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch the fence gain posts and boards scene by scene. (staging)
Across the film's years the Maxson backyard fence grows plank by plank, faster in some stretches than others.
Payoff: The fence works as both a clock and a warning: what protects a family can also seal it off.
Notice how arguments stay in one wide two-shot without cutting away. (camera)
Christensen keeps the anamorphic frame wide enough to hold Troy and whoever he is fighting with, and the film almost never cuts to relieve the tension.
Payoff: You cannot look away from either face, so you watch both people absorb the same blow.
Listen for how long the score stays silent. (sound)
Zarvos's music is held back for long stretches, entering only in late fragments, so most scenes run on voices, footsteps, and the block's ambient noise.
Payoff: Silence forces dialogue to carry the whole scene, which is how Wilson's stage lines were built to work.
Notice Troy performing his stories with big gestures, like a stage actor. (performance)
His tales about wrestling Death or bargaining with the devil escalate in size and confidence every time he tells them.
Payoff: The performance invites you to admire the story first and doubt the man telling it second.
Notice how Troy's and Rose's clothes change color and formality. (setting)
Troy moves between sanitation workwear and his good Friday hat; Rose's housedresses and aprons change as the years go by.
Payoff: Costume tracks the same passage of years the fence does, without needing a date onscreen.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the fence go up board by board; it is the whole film's clock and its argument.