James Earl Jones vs Denzel Washington in FENCES / who is better?

Ok so first is JEJ, and the son seems to be playing it like he’s neurodivergent, this is from the 80s I think, so I was a child then and didn’t see the whole thing, but his performance is wonderful: - he is angry and delivers the lines so well you feel the weight of his responsibility

Second is Denzel with, if you’ll excuse me, a much better co star but it is interesting to me how callous he plays it, despite, or obv because it was filmed and he gets time to figure it and more from his “son” :

What I think is interesting in this is, as far as black cinema or plays go, fences is as high as it goes and it seems that even when you cut live from taped they were approaching the character from two very different and generational positions. James plays it weary and almost a warning for his son, while Denzel plays it more confrontational and daring, and I imagine that can only be driven by what they personally drew from.

It’s just a neat thing to consider, but perhaps there are other, more corporate things involved, I dunno. Thought this was interesting how they each played it.