In the News
It was a wildly unexpected and incongruous rant, head-snapping from its bizarre perspective. The host of a primetime show on the left-leaning U.S television news network, MSNBC, publicly excoriating a film by an African-American director and boasting a primarily black cast, Selma—a film that presented the story of one of the pivotal chapters in the American struggle for civil rights. [1]
The host of the show, Hardball, was clearly angry at the film’s depiction of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Particularly galling to the host, Chris Matthews, was a scene in the Oval Office where the Rev. Martin Luther King attempts to persuade the President to pressure Congress to pass voting rights legislation. In the scene King says: ‘We want federal legislation granting Negros the right to vote unencumbered. And we want federal protocol eliminating the decades-long dismissal and illegal denial of Blacks seeking to vote, and we want robust enforcement of that protocol’. The President responds: ‘That’s fine but most of the South is still not desegregated. Let’s not start another battle when we haven’t’ even won the first. And you know what the next battle should be? The eradication of poverty…This voting thing is just gonna have to wait.’ That exchange so clearly angered admirers of President Johnson, that it provoked a national debate about the film, the veracity of the work, and, frankly, the abilities of its director.
At the end of the Hardball piece, after the heated rhetoric subsided, one question seemed to be left hanging in the quiet stillness of the air. What if I–or people like me– had the power of a Mr. Matthews—namely, the ability to reach millions of people and let loose your personal point of view on a nightly basis? What if all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or religious beliefs, had the power to have others sit up and take notice when he or she was angry, when he or she believed that some injustice had been committed, just like Mr. Matthews and a handful of others are able to do? What if people like me, my background, my parentage, my station in life, had the power to summon university professors, former Civil Rights leaders, or former members of cabinet, to my table, and give them a piece of my mind? What if that power was still not concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, whose access to that power lay not only in hard work, intelligence, and perseverance, but, frankly, in luck of birth?
The Film
The motion picture, Selma, was released to a limited audience in December of 2014 and expanded to over 2,000 screens the first week of 2015. It is the story of the historic march led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. The objective was to break down barriers to vote, barriers which many Black Americans experienced, barriers to a right guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The film’s cast includes David Oyelowo as King, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Civil Rights attorney Fred Gray, Tom Wilkinson as President Johnson, Oprah Winfrey as Civil Rights worker Annie Lee Cooper, and Tim Roth as Governor George Wallace. Listed among the film’s producers are Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. The British production companies, Cloud Eight Films and Celador Films (Slumdog Millionaire) are also attached to the project. The film is directed by Ava DuVernay, who, in 2012 was the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for the film Middle of Nowhere [2] Selma is based on a script by the British playwright and screenwriter, Paul Webb, whose credits include the play Four Knights in Knaresborough–a play about the assassination of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in 1170–and a rewrite for Steven Spielberg’s , Lincoln. [3]
Budgeted at an estimated $20 million the film grossed $52 million at the end of its U.S. run. It won a number of awards including the NAACP Image Award s for Outstanding Motion Picture and Outstanding Actor in a motion picture, the American Film Institute’s Movie of the Year, the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Song. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar but lost to Birdman. There was some controversy due to Ms. DuVernay not being nominated for a Best Director Award. This was discussed in a larger narrative concerning the lack of diversity in Hollywood—noting that no person of colour was nominated in any of the major acting categories at the 87th Academy Awards in February of 2015
Controversy
Criticism of the film was not limited to one show on MSNBC. The director of the LBJ Library and Museum, Mark Updegrove, likewise blasted the film for not showing how productive the relationship King and Johnson was, and how it came to bear on getting voting rights legislation passed. Joseph Califano, a top assistant to President Johnson for domestic affairs, reportedly said that no one should see the film. [4] While promoting the movie Ms. DuVernay responded to the criticism by saying that the film was ‘art’. ’I’m not a historian, I’m not a documentarian. I am an artist who explored history and what I found, the questions that I have, the ideas that I have about history, I’ve put into this project that I’ve made.’ [5]
It’s interesting that two of the individuals who actually participated in the march, and who are actually depicted in the film, have not expressed the criticism that others have made. Andrew Young, then a confidant of Mr. King said that the film makers did a ‘magnificent job’ and ‘ninety-nine percent of the details they got right.’ [6] John Lewis, a Civil Rights activist who was severely injured during the march, and is now a congressman from the state of Georgia , was asked whether or not the film was fair to President Johnson. He responded that ‘The film…is art. It’s drama. I loved the film…The film is so real. It is powerful. It made me cry.’ [7]
So here are two diametrically opposed perceptions of the film. Allies of President Johnsons believe that the film has done the President a disservice, while those who actually participated in the march, who actually understand what the film is trying to present, what the director is attempting to say, embrace the piece. The divergent views that the film uncovers is noteworthy, but far more important in my view, is the simple fact that Ms. DuVernay and the others responsible for this film, have the facility to bring their view of this story to a mass audience, an accomplishment that those who are not in a position of power seldom achieve.
On the contrary, most ethnic and racial minorities, some religious groups, and, one may argue, women in general–in effect those locked out of power positions–usually do not have the resources to present their own stories to a mass audience. Instead their stories, their images, their relationships with one another and with the wider world, are presented by others, others who often have little if any first-hand experience with the subject matter, and others who not only are not familiar with their stories but may even be hostile to them.
Historical Perspective – Mississippi Burning
Consider for instance a historical example. In January of 1989 the feature film Mississippi Burning was released in the United States. Directed by the British director Parker (Fame, Angel Heat, Midnight Express), it starred Gene Hackman (The French Connection, The Conversation) and Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ, The English Patient). The film was based on the notorious murders of three Civil Rights workers in 1964. In June of that year James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were part of Freedom Summer, a campaign to register African Americans to vote. On June 21st the three went missing in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Forty-four days later, their bodies were dug out of an earthen swamp. Evidence suggested that at least one of the young men was buried alive. During the search the bodies of nine black men were also dug out of local swamps. [8]
The film chronicles the FBI’s investigation of the crimes—or rather, the director’s interpretation of that investigation. The film is clearly fictionalized version of the crime–with the names of the key characters and location changed–and is packaged as a police drama. Two FBI agents are sent to a Mississippi county to investigate the deaths of three Civil Rights workers. The agents encounter open hostility from the local police. The Ku Klux Klan terrorizes the local black population into remaining silent. After an additional spate of violence, additional agents are brought in to assist in the investigation. After initial by-the-book attempt to solve the crime, the agents resort to unconventional tactics, tactics spearheaded by Agent Anderson, the ex-Mississippi sheriff played by Hackman. Tactics include giving the Klan a taste of their own medicine—threats, intimidation, and terror. These tactics ultimately are key to solving the case.
Browsing the reviews at the time of the film’s release, most critics took the film as it was intended: a gritty police drama, given an enormous emotional heft, by being based on a truly horrific real-life incident that had been etched into the American consciousness for over two decades. Very few critics complained about the artistic license the film-makers had taken with the story. In his 1988 review of the film Roger Ebert wrote:
The film is based on a true story, the disappearances of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, three young Civil Rights workers who were part of a voter registration drive in Mississippi. When their murdered bodies were finally discovered, their corpses were irrefutable testimony against the officials who had complained that the whole case was a publicity stunt, dreamed up by Northern liberals and outside agitators. The case became one of the milestones, like the day Rosa Parks took her seat on the bus or the day Martin Luther King marched into Montgomery, on the long march toward racial justice in this country.
But “Mississippi Burning” is not a documentary, nor does it strain to present a story based on the facts. This movie is a gritty police drama, bloody, passionate and sometimes surprisingly funny about the efforts of two FBI men to lead an investigation into the disappearances. [9]
Wayne King of the New York Times acknowledged the fiction of the movie, noting ‘much of the power of ”Mississippi Burning” derives from the audience’s knowledge that the essential horror it is witnessing onscreen really happened’. Even the title of the movie is the actual F.B.I. code name for the investigation. Many details are drawn from life”. [10]
Variety says, in the lead to its review: Though its credibility is undermined by a fanciful ending, Mississippi Burning captures much of the truth in its telling of the impact of a 1964 FBI probe into the murders of three civil rights workers. [11]
For some however—and the very few who had a national platform in 1988–the film did a gross disservice to the Civil Rights Movement. The film was wildly criticized for its portrayal of Blacks as helpless victims, and of the FBI as the avenging force, riding in to save the day. This is a fiction of course. Many African Americans, and others in the Civil Rights Movement, bravely gave their lives to, and for, the cause. The FBI, under its director, J. Edgar Hoover, was hardly a friend of the Movement. Quotes by Civil Rights leaders are difficult to come by, but one notable voice on the side of the dissenters was Time magazine’s Jack E. White. White was the first African American staff-writer, bureau chief, and editor at Time magazine. [12] Unlike many of the film’s reviewers who saw it as a mere fictionalized account of the incident, White argues that the movie actually turns the facts inside out: instead of being a zealous defender of civil rights, the FBI ‘was indeed engaged in a lawless campaign against an enemy. But its target was Martin Luther King Jr. It began with wiretaps and buggings, approved by then Attorney General Robert Kennedy, aimed at digging up proof that King was under the influence of suspected Communists’. [13]
The film’s director, Alana Parker, dismisses all indictments: “Our film isn’t about the civil rights movement. It’s about why there was a need for a civil rights movement. And because it’s a movie, I felt it had to be fictionalized. The two heroes in the story had to be white. That is a reflection of our society as much as of the film industry. At this point in time, it could not have been made any other way.” [14]
Mr. Parker is quoted in a NY Times movie review of the film, says: ”It is a fiction…It’s a movie. There have been a lot of documentaries on the subject. They run on PBS and nobody watches them. I have to reach a big audience, so hopefully the film is accessible to reach millions of people in 50 different countries.
”It’s fiction in the same way that ‘Platoon’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’ are fictions of the Vietnam War. But the important thing is the heart of the truth, the spirit,” he said. ”I keep coming back to truth, but I defend the right to change it in order to reach an audience who knows nothing about the realities and certainly don’t watch PBS documentaries’. [15]
Legacy: The Need for a Voice
One may criticize the comparison of the films: The objectives of the respective films, according to both directors, were different. Ms. DuVernay says she intended to relate the story of the historic event as she saw it—in essence, telling the story in a way that emphasized the key factors as she saw them. And at least two Civil Rights workers who were there strongly supported her vision. Mr. Parker’s intention on the other hand was to simply create a police drama, leveraging truly horrific, true-life events, burned into the American psyche, to provide emotional heft to his work. I’ll not suggest that there is a moral equivalence here. Both films created a narrative that presented a view of the same period in American history. The difference though is that a viewer, whose only exposure to this era is via these films, will come away with an entirely misleading view of the role of the federal authorities, and of the local Blacks from Burring, whereas they will have a far more accurate view of the Civil Rights Movement from Selma, albeit with a somewhat misleading perception of the role of the President. Which film carries the greater virtue? Which carries the greater sin? That of course is entirely up to the audience. The significance of Selma however is that at least Ms. DuVernay’s audience now have their story on screen, a story that did not exist in 1988.
This reality, I believe, illustrates the desperate need for artists—writers, directors, producers—of all stripes, to tell their own stories.
According to the Los Angeles Times study of the organization behind the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, ‘94% of Oscar voters were white and 77% were male; academy members were found to have a median age of 62. When The Times updated the data in 2013, the academy was 93% white and 76% male’. [16] And the individuals with the clout to produce or direct a feature film is extremely lacking in gender and ethnic diversity. Of the hundreds of features distributed in wide release over the past ten years, you can count on both hands the number of ethnic minorities or women who have hadthe op;ortunity to direct. Sofia Coppola, Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, John Singleton, Tyler Perry, Antoine Fuqua, Ang Lee, Robert Rodriguez come to mind, but not many more. In 2010 Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman, and as of 2015, the only woman, to win the award for Best Director in the history of the Academy Awards [17] Ava DuVernay is only the second Black woman to direct a nationally released feature film in the United States, the first being Julie Dash for Daughters of the Dust in 1991.
The lack of diversity in telling diverse stories And I’m suggesting that this is not only true in Hollywood, but in many aspects of society—in the way the news is presented, in the way history books are written. Relying on the kindness of strangers may be a very risky undertaking indeed.
© Weldon Turner 2015
All Rights Reserved
References
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaXVXKWP5GM
2 https://prolabs.imdb.com/name/nm1148550/bio?ref_=nm_subnv_persdet_bio
3 http://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/paul-webb-1117987703/
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmVZReyHa-M
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmVZReyHa-M
6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2BlalrCSX0
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-uMRUgA-Q
8 http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/26/50_years_later_relatives_of_slain
9 http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mississippi-burning-1988
10 http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940DE2DA1F30F937A35751C1A96E948260
11 http://variety.com/1987/film/reviews/mississippi-burning-1200427527/
12 http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/jack-white
13 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,956694,00.html
14 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,956683-2,00.html
15 http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940DE2DA1F30F937A35751C1A96E948260
16 http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-academy-members-diversity-20150627-story.html
17 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000941/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm