He's one of the great characters in American literature - and one of the most difficult to capture on film.
Mark Twain had a tough time writing the part of Jim, the runaway slave in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and Hollywood has had just as rough a time figuring out what to do with the mature black man who escorts a young white boy down the Mississippi River."My feeling is that if Jim is not right, the movie will fall apart," said actor Courtney B. Vance, who plays Jim in Disney's new version, "The Adventures of Huck Finn," which opened recently nationwide. "Especially since the story that they told was about the relationship between Huck and Jim. And if it doesn't work, the movie doesn't work.
"So I knew my job was incredibly difficult."
Difficult roles require talented actors, and Vance, at 34 twice nominated for Tonys on Broadway, is only the latest in a distinguished line of performers who have taken on Jim in a slew of "Huck Finn" movies.
In 1931, it was Clarence Muse, one of the founders of the Lafayette Players of Harlem; in 1939, the part went to Broadway veteran Rex Ingram; retired boxer Archie Moore contributed a surprisingly adept turn to the role in 1960, and the tradition resumed in 1974 when Paul Winfield graced an otherwise undistinguished musical version.
But as Vance tells it, it wasn't love at first sight between him and the film's young writer-director, Stephen Sommers.
"I wasn't offered it," recalled Vance, who may be known to some film-goers for his role as the American sonar operator in "The Hunt for Red October." "I had to go through an audition for it once, and it didn't go well. I didn't have a hint of what he wanted, and he wasn't saying. So I said, `All right, I don't think I want to do it. I know why it went wrong, and I don't know if I want to do it."'
Vance put the experience out of his mind until he returned to Los Angeles to audition for another part and his agent told him Sommers wanted him back. It was not the end of the mix-ups, but Vance did ease himself warily into the production. As far as he was concerned, the character of Jim required a different approach than he perceived from the filmmakers.
"It's so delicate, it's like walking through a minefield," Vance said. "We watch this movie with 1993 eyes. We don't watch it saying, `He was writing this in 1898 or whenever.' Jim is a slave, and you can't compromise the piece. I can't be talking like I'm talking to you here now because if he's supposed to be a slave, oh my, he's too intelligent.
"By the same token, I didn't want to talk like `I ain't gwyne,' because if you hear the Stepin Fetchit quote unquote take on it, you won't hear the story, either. So there had to be a middle ground that we had to find so that the story could be heard, about how these two people from completely different backgrounds find some middle ground." Some of the miscommunication that marred the auditions cropped again once shooting started. This time, however, there was a prompt resolution.
"One of the toeholds I found is dignity," Vance said of his characterization. "That has to be one of the major concerns and major focuses of doing it."
Whether that dignity was being evoked properly became a concern to Vance when Sommers set up - or blocked - an early scene when Jim and Huck are on the raft. Jim says, "Smell that, Huck? Smells like freedom. If it's Cairo I'm a free man."
Recalled Vance: "The way he (Sommers) had it blocked in this scene was that we were building a wigwam on the raft together. And I said, `That's not right, I should be whittling by myself or something.'
"Finally Steve and I went back to our trailers, Steve came and knocked on my door about 10 minutes later and said, `Courtney, you're right. This is the way to handle it."'
Vance also found that Sommers didn't pretend to be an expert about being an African-American.
"He said at the very beginning, `Courtney, I don't know much about the black experience."' Vance said.
Vance grew up in the 1960s in Detroit - a time of riots and rebellion.
"The Detroit riots went right by my house, the tanks and soldiers. I remember I went up to one of them to shake his hand and he turned his bayonet on me. I was about 8," he recalled. "I remember my father's grocery store burned down; he was a manager at one of the supermarkets.
"It's a continual process of me learning about things and sensitizing myself to things and just knowing that if I'm sitting down and a little white boy comes to me, it's a completely different feeling than if I'm sitting there and he comes crying and I stand up.
"My being taller accomplishes the same thing, but it protects my dignity. If you had one different element to the circumstances, it completely changes it."