If it was shown in the movie theaters, this film would have easily earned an Academy Award for Cicely Tyson who is one of America's finest actresses period. She portrays Miss Jane Pittman as a 110 year old survivor and a former slave. Her performance is Tour-De-Force that it would bring tears to anybody's eyes. This film should be shown in acting classes for all aspiring actresses to see Miss Tyson's performance as brilliant. The movie is based on the Ernest Gaines novel of the same name and it's quality reminds us of the greatness that existed in network films of the past. Only a few years before Roots, this film earned 9 Emmy Awards and rightfully so including two for Tyson alone. It's heartbreaking at times as well as inspiring. I can't speak enough of this film and it should be shown again and again in classrooms and schools because it offers so much history as it is historical fiction. I can't forget the supporting cast of players including the wonderful Richard Dysart and Katherine Helmond and others who have made this film are all award winning.

This was a made for TV movie based on the Jane Pittman novels. Despite playing as if Miss Jane was a real person who lived to be 110, I can assure you that it is indeed fiction. However, like Forrest Gump, Miss Jane was a fictional character who was woven into the real American events that defined the Black-American experience for the first hundred years after emancipation. Unlike Gump, this movie has much more significance and poignancy--making it an exceptional film to illustrate history and social change to subsequent generations.

The film begins with a White reporter coming to see Miss Jane and learn about her long and interesting life. This is set against the backdrop of the coming of the Freedom Marchers into the rural South--as several around Miss Jane have been jailed or worse for demanding equality. Miss Jane's recollections begin shortly before the end of the Civil War and demonstrate how this struggle and yearning for rights is not new, but part of a long and gut-wrenching process that has taken her entire life.

The film deserves great praise on so many levels. The novels and script are simply superb writing. Cicely Tyson did an incredibly job playing both a younger Miss Jane and a hundred year-plus character as well. To make all this possible, makeup and prosthetics were used that even today would be admirable. And the direction, music, supporting acting all come together to make a beautiful and very touching film.

About the only negatives I can think of are that the film was too short and I would have preferred to see it as a mini-series--it was THAT good! Also, the problems and race relations talked about in the film are rather superficial due to these time constraints. Many characters aren't well hashed out because there is only so much you can say in 150 minutes about a time period spanning 100 years. Despite these minor problems, see this film--it's a must for anyone wanting to see great film making as well as learn how far we have traveled. Plus, it does pack a mighty powerful punch.

Two years after her Oscar nominated role in Sounder, Cicely Tyson got her second career role in The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman for which she won an Emmy and the film itself gathered a flock of same. It is ironic that Cicely Tyson is now 91 and evolving right into the age bracket of her character Jane Pittman, originally called Ticey by her slave master.

During the course of her lifetime Ticey who is given the name of Jane by a passing Union soldier she's seen it all. Among other things she meets and marries Joe Pittman played by Rod Perry who found work as a cowboy in Texas and was killed breaking bucking horses. Tyson sees the history of black slaves, hopes cruelly dashed by a bungled reconstruction, go into a system of peonage in the Old Confederacy controlled by an unchecked racism.

She also sees the slow birth of the Civil Right movement and it is in 1962 in Mississippi Delta Louisiana that the 110 year old Jane Pittman. Even by the whites in the area Miss Jane Pittman is seen as one remarkable institution.

In the supporting cast Thalmus Rasulala stands out as her friend Ned whom she goes back with in slave days. From a kid who could hardly utter a word, Rasulala develops an articulation that those in the Populist Era south regard as downright subversive. His death scene will shatter you emotionally.

So completely does Cicely Tyson as the ancient Jane Pittman and in her flashbacks to younger days disappear and dissolve into her character that you really think you are watching a 110 year old former slave tell us of her life and travails. Helped in this is her incredible makeup. Now she wouldn't need it as she reaches those Pittman years in real life.

This is a film not to be missed. One of the best made for TV films ever done and one that makes Civil Rights history come alive.