Director: Ava DuVernay
Cast: David Oyeowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Oprah Winfrey
Have I Seen it Before: No.
Did I Like It: This one firm complaint I’m going to have will be tied exclusively to the manner in which I watched the film. For Martin Luther King Jr. day, normally my wife engages in a service project with her work, while I inevitably end up at home rewatching Cheers for the 17th time.
This year, with COVID still raging, the service project fell by the wayside, with her and her colleagues instead watching the film...
...screen shared over Zoom. With Gchat chimes. And I thought motion-blurring was the worst possible way to take in a film since the downfall of VHS. I didn’t know how good I had it.
Now that we have that out of the way...
I have a temptation to look down on important history trying to be jammed into the package of a mainstream Hollywood film. It certainly feels like this film has its heart in the right place, with the important story of the 1965 marches on Selma being told by filmmakers who have a vested interest in having the story told. DuVernay also doesn’t feel content to offer a hagiographic vision of King, and instead makes him a snapshot of a real man, and not the smoothed out image that every corporation, soccer mom, and conservative politician suddenly remembers in the middle of January.
But I can’t escape the conclusion I have with many historical films: history can’t truthfully fit inside a movie, even when the filmmaker has the best of intentions. If one wants to spend a few hours inspired about the feelings behind something like the civil rights movement, then there are worse ways to spend one’s time. But if one wants to learn the true history of such things (and one should), one really should read a book.