Film of August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ serves up mid-century kitchenware

Many of us currently know Viola Davis from her television role in “How to Get Away with Murder” on ABC, but her film roles include “The Help” and “Fences,” both of which make important statements on African-American life, culture and history in the United States. “Fences” has been showing at Sonoma Cinemas.

Interestingly, this super-strong woman who plays super-strong women on stage and screen, spends a lot of the time in the kitchen in these two movies.

For a reason that is probably obvious to everyone else, and lastly to me, I always eye the kitchen utensils and appliances just to see what they are and for their historic accuracy during some movies, especially where food plays an important role.

And “Fences” was one of those. It seemed as if Davis spent most of the movie in the kitchen, wearing an apron and cooking slow-cooked stews and chicken dishes to please the men in her life.

That role was typical for the time, when more people (women) spent longer hours cooking economically to make household budgets stretch and feed the most people possible with as little money as possible.

It was exciting for this utensil collector to see that I have everything in the “Fences” kitchen set in my collection except the toaster model, which seemed to disappear from the table by the window. Maybe she just puts it away after breakfast.

But she just kept cooking and cooking in an historic period when people “stopped over to visit,” instead of emailing or texting. There was more personal contact. And more personal contact among male neighbors, not to mention the Friday night payday flask of gin.

Some of us notice changing or inconsistent details in movies, just for fun. Like someone wearing a different color sweater in different parts of the same scene. I thought I noticed in “Fences” that the Crisco can on the kitchen counter actually wore a Canadian label. If someone disagrees, please let me know. Enjoy this movie. Looking forward to “Hidden Figures.”