Selma
by Paul Webb
I saw Selma on opening night, and the theater was packed. It was an incredibly well done, amazing performances, and the fact that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences snubbed it like whoa is BULLSHIT. Ana DuVernay absolutely deserved a nod for Best Director. David Oyelowo absolutely deserved a nod for Best Actor. But here we are with the whitest Oscars since 1998.
Selma is about the Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches that happened in 1965, lead by Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It covers the obstacles to black voting, and the events that led up to the full march on March 21-25th, 1965. It also explores Martin Luther King as a person, rather than just an icon, and the human flaws that we all have, and some of the costs of turning your entire life over to a cause.
Simply put, this is brilliant and brutal and timely in a way that I don’t think even DuVernay could have anticipated while she was making it. As Tina Fay and Amy Poehler said during their Golden Globes monologue, “…Selma is about the civil rights movement, which totally worked and now everything’s fine.”
The movie opens with a soft, quiet scene of Martin and Coretta getting ready for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and then cuts to some children going down stairs in a church. I knew what was coming, or at least suspected, and still when there was an explosion, I jumped. Children are in peril, so fair warning.
Given the climate in the country, and the protests in Ferguson and elsewhere, there might be some people who see as prescient the protests met with police brutality and overwhelming show of force, the black teenager shot to death by a uniformed officer in front of his mother, the conflict between older civil rights leaders who’s organization is based around the church, and the younger students who feel like they aren’t being taken seriously. But it’s not prescient at all. It’s just constant. This has been happening since the Civil War, and this will continue to happen because history is cyclical and we don’t seem to learn from it.
Because this film was directed by a black woman, there are things that we see depicted that never would have occurred to the male director to include. I heard DuVernay talking on Fresh Air about the scene with the girls in the church, and one of ways she lulls the audience into a sense of security (EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW WHAT’S COMING) is having the girl talking about what’s important to pre-teens- their hair, and how one of them ironed her hair before her baptism and one dunk and it went all kinky, and how Coretta Scott King has the best hair. Black women, and friends of black women who have been allowed to hear these discussions, know that hair is a deeply important topic, and this is what girls who are just starting to explore the edges of adulthood would be talking about.
Another scene is one with Coretta Scott King and Amelia Boyton, another leader in the Selma activist community, going to talk to Malcolm X, where Coretta confesses that she never feels prepared for a meeting like this. It’s a lovely scene of women supporting each other, and Coretta getting a moment to be herself, and not supporting Martin. These are scenes that I doubt a male director would have considered to be important, and Duverney, as she explains in her NPR interview, absolutely feels her responsibility of telling this story her own way and filtered through her own experiences.
We also get to see Martin Luther King, Jr., as a man who had affairs (and Carmen Egojo’s best work is a scene where she confronts Martin that she knows), who had uncertainty, and tried to see the long game as best he could. David Oyewolo is masterful. In the same Fresh Air interview, DuVernay said, “He doesn’t sound like King, and he doesn’t look like King, but he kind of does?” He manages to be Martin Luther King without doing an impression. You can see the weight this work has settled on his shoulders.
I want to also address the cries of historical inaccuracy- yes, the movie’s version of LBJ is less helpful to the Voting Rights Act than he was in real life. He’s worried about the timing, etc, etc. DuVernay said that she did not want to make a movie about a white savior; she wanted to explore the truth of black leaders and activists and people leading themselves. This is a movie about black people, not white people who saved black people. There are quite a few white people who are supporting and following (and sacrificing), but they aren’t the focus (and quite frankly, if the thought of a movie with the vast majority of the cast being black is a problem, basically you have every other movie in theaters now to choose from, so…. Shake it off). This is a movie in which the heroes are black people, and that’s so rare. (Also, and not for nothing, I don’t see people raising a huge stink over the inaccuracies in The Imitation Game, which was also a great movie but had comparable shifts from reality.)
I think this movie was really well-made, and I learned a lot (I had a vague sense of the Selma to Montgomery marches, but no specifics). The script was really tight, and managed to convey King’s speeches without being word-for-word (they couldn’t use the text, as another filmmaker has those rights and it would have been a huge chunk of a small budget to try to buy them). It didn’t shy away from making King a human person, and explored several facets of how a huge movement works. Basically, it was brilliant.
Given the convergence of the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, and the protests in Ferguson and across the country against police brutality, and that maybe a few more people are becoming more aware of the deliberately violent system that’s designed to work this way, this movie could not be better timed. Please go see it. See what costs people have paid to get us where we are now, and how we can keep going forward. Because we have to go forward.
Selma is in theaters now in the US, and you can find movie tickets and showtimes at Fandango and Moviefone.
Special note: students in 7th, 8th or 9th grade can see Selma for free at select theaters with a student ID or report card. Visit SelmaStudentTickets.com for information, locations, and showtimes.
I’m a fan of David Oyelowo. I didn’t know about this movie. (Coco doesn’t own an actual TV and hates the radio and newspapers/ news sites. Coco wants to live in a cave with a HUGE library and no phone.) It sounds like a winner, I’ll have to venture forth and check it out.
To paraphrase the first comment: aztec doesn’t own an actual TV and hates the radio and newspapers/ news sites. aztec wants to live in a cave with a HUGE library. (I will keep the phone and the internet access though)
Thank you, I’m going to watch this.
I’ve been thinking about taking my 12yo to the movie when he is out of school for MLK Day but wasn’t sure whether it would be too difficult for him to follow or engage with. Do you have thoughts about age appropriateness?
That’s tough. Partially because I don’t know your kid, but mostly because between the bombing that kills kids, and the extremely violent police brutality and a few other things, it might be too much for a 12 year old to take in. I think I would have been able to handle it at 12, and kids are more capable of processing than people think, but it comes down to the kid. I’d suggest you see it first,, and talk to him about what he’s going to see and find out what he thinks he can handle.
Beautiful review. Saw Selma a week ago in a movie theater–and I own three TVs, love the radio and newspapers/news sites. Generally I avoid movie theaters in favor of my big, fat bigscreen at home. I have no problem waiting to see them until they come out in video. But some movies, like this one…I just have to see in a theater. Glad I did. And I am blown away in a very bad way that neither DuVernay nor Oyewolo were nominated. Echoes of Malcolm X all over again, where the bravest, richest, deepest and truest are ignored in favor of other movies that will not even be remembered in a few years.
Looking forward to seeing this hopefully this week.
Thanks for the review I have also heard from others that the movie was really good . I usually wait till video but now feel compelled to support at the box office. I really thought we were past the I have a black friend routine… Guess not. ” Now everything’s fine”. Sad for the actors who’s work really was above the drivel that gets recognized.
Really looking forward to watching this in a movie theater, I am hoping this weekend. Add me to those who feel compelled to support its box office results and not wait for a later opportunity to watch it. I am so glad to see it reviewed on SBTB!
I mostly agree with this review except for the comment excusing the historical inaccuracies about LBJ (“yes, the movie’s version of LBJ is less helpful to the Voting Rights Act than he was in real life. He’s worried about the timing, etc, etc. DuVernay said that she did not want to make a movie about a white savior; she wanted to explore the truth of black leaders and activists and people leading themselves. This is a movie about black people, not white people who saved black people.”) Focusing the story on the black people involved rather than the white people is indeed a worthy goal; however, if you’re making a story based on history, I don’t think changing facts is justified just because they don’t fit the director’s desired narrative.
The statement “Also, and not for nothing, I don’t see people raising a huge stink over the inaccuracies in The Imitation Game, which was also a great movie but had comparable shifts from reality” also seems to be bending the truth to fit a desired narrative: in fact, plenty of people are complaining about the historical inaccuracies in The Imitation Game. For example, see http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ and http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/12/03/the_imitation_game_fact_vs_fiction_how_true_the_new_movie_is_to_alan_turing.html
LBJ could have been handled in a truthful manner without diminishing the black movement that is at the heart of SELMA. I keep hearing from some of the rightwingers in my office that it’s ok to lie about our current president Because Something. Why is this different?
If it’s wrong for them, it’s wrong for SELMA to do it, too.
I haven’t seen “Selma” yet, but I see that the director disputes some people’s notion that LBJ was more supportive to the Civil Rights movement than she depicted in the film. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/30/selma-director-lyndon-johnson-martin-luther-king-controversy
And being old enough to remember LBJ as President, I tend to agree. He would have preferred to put off voting rights legislation but was forced into it after the events of Bloody Sunday. LBJ was quite the political operator and knew how to make a virtue of necessity.
Sad to say, but I no longer expect Hollywood to accurately portray historical reality.
When Argo won an academy award, I killed any hope that based on a true story meant anything more than these characters in some incarnation existed and yes there was some kind of dramatic conflict between them.
As for the movie, it is painful and bloody as are race relations, here and abroad, then and now. It also has a cast of a lot of characters, and I had trouble figuring out who was who. I know “snick” was important, but I didn’t quite get the conflict there. To be honest, the conflict from LBJ and MLK was dramatically satisfying. In a way, it was an allegory for white-black relations at the time: we’ve given you civil rights, let us get on with the next issue. (I’ve heard similar comments on Ferguson.)
It is a good movie, but it is not comfortable or easy.
@Shannon, it’s “SNCC”, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
I don’t expect any film to cover historical events with 100% reality, when even people who were eyewitnesses disagree about what happened. But I have to add that anyone who thinks that LBJ was all gung-ho about voting rights, and the movie is unfair to him, needs to read about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and what happened at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Or just watch that episode of the civil rights era documentary, “Eyes on the Prize”.