An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

When I was in undergrad, in one of my English classes we watched Robert Enrico's film version of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." I remember totally falling for it (haha, unfortunate figure of speech in light of the story, but I digress) and then feeling kind of cheated at the end. For some reason, this morning the memory of watching that film came back to me and I remembered that there was a twist, but I didn't remember what it was, so I watched it again. Half of it I love--the agonizing silence, the long, upward shots of the noose--and half of it is so weird--the fact that the protagonist's desire to be "a living man" is voiced in African American dialect. It reminded me of part of Toni Morrison's argument in "Playing in the Dark," which is that the major characteristics of American literature--autonomy, freedom, masculinity, individualism, and so on--are responses to an Africanist presence in America. I'm going to quote from her, because she says it so much better than I can paraphrase it: “Black slavery enriched the country’s creative possibilities. For in that construction of blackness and enslavement could be found not only the not-free but also, with the dramatic polarity created by skin color, the projection of the not-me. The result was a playground for the imagination. What rose up out of collective needs to allay internal fears and to rationalize external exploitation was an American Africanism—a fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm, and desire that is uniquely American” (38). Why is it that Enrico chooses a voice speaking in African American dialect to express the confederate sympathizer's desire to live? There is a terrible irony in this choice, since the freedom of the presumed speaker himself is at the center of the conflict that gives rise to the hanging in the first place. Like some desires--the really powerful ones--can only be expressed through a minstrel/ventriloquist type arrangement. Like the only person who can understand the intensity of the white man's desire to be 'a living man' is a slave or former slave. I'm not sure I'm posing the question very well. But if you've never seen it, you should watch it and tell me what you make of that voice-over. It's worth the 24 minutes.