OVP: Selma (2014)

Film: Selma (2014)
Stars: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Tim Roth, Common, Lorraine Toussaint, Oprah Winfrey
Director: Ava DuVernay
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Picture and Original Song-"Glory"*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Whew-that was an emotional sit for me.  From the early moments of the film, watching Oprah Winfrey's Annie Lee Cooper trying to vote but being put through impossible rigors in order to cast her ballot to the final scenes with photos of the cast and the Oscar-nominated song "Glory" playing over the credits, I was an emotional wreck.  The film is profoundly moving, an experience that has be felt even if the film's actual character work never quite measures up to the insanely well-designed series of scenes, particularly those featuring everyday citizens standing up for their rights.  The film, nominated for Best Picture, is a testament to the power that can be felt by capturing history through the magic of a camera.

I am pointedly refusing to put in a spoiler alert here like I do on every review, because this is not only a true story, but one that everyone should know, so there's absolutely no need for one.  The film is a run-up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s successful march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery in 1965.  The film centers principally around Dr. King, though it does on occasion get into the minds of other major figures during this period of the Civil Rights movement, including President Johnson, Governor George Wallace, Dr. King's wife Coretta, and several young activists who would go on to incredible success in politics (John Lewis and Andrew Young).  The movie moves through the contentious run-up to the events that would take place during Martin Luther King Jr's speech in Montgomery, always very matter-of-fact, but still extremely cinematic in the way they are staged.

The film is at its absolute best and most gut-wrenching not when it is investigating the lives of these iconic figures of the Civil Rights movement, but instead when they are focusing on the work of everyday human beings that are living in Selma at the time.  Oprah Winfrey, whom I'm so thankful is not only financing films like this, but has also returned to acting, is wonderful in a side part as a woman who is trying desperately to vote in Alabama like she did in other states before moving to the South.  The film is gut-wrenching in the way that it presents scenes-you frequently know little about the people that are being attacked, except that they are simply following the law and trying to realize their most basic of rights.  The brutalist thing for me, and what made me weep in my seat, was the sheer hate that was onscreen.  It's been a long time since I've seen such realistic, petrifying hate put onscreen.  Frequently we see still photographs of those people who yelled racial epithets at passing citizens and carried confederate flags to demonstrations, and you forget that they were not only human beings who lived alongside of the people they were fighting against, but also that this is an extremely recent part of history.  Many of our parents and grandparents were alive when people were still being beaten like this, attacked for something so arbitrary as skin color.  Ava DuVernay's film makes this aspect of history seem alive-there is no embellishment, no hiding-from-the-truth, but cinema that opens like a raw nerve.  Casting unknown actors and largely unknown characters in these scenes makes them feel more like people you pass everyday on the street, and makes you cringe in your seat knowing the lengths that hate can push a person.

The film isn't flawless, of course, and I think it's biggest mistake may have been to make Dr. King the central figure, rather than a side character to the March.  This is because David Oyelowo's character, as written, doesn't feel authentic.  It might be because the film, like real life, was pulling him in so many different directions.  He was a husband that was in a struggling marriage, a hero and saint to millions of people, and a loathed antagonist amongst millions more.  I left the film feeling like I still don't know this character.  Particularly when the second march randomly ends and the way that he treats his marriage-there's too much left internally, too much we can't seem to find out.  The same could be said for the portrayals of President Johnson, Coretta Scott King, and Governor Wallace-we get scenes as snippets, little historical drops but we don't learn enough about the motivations of these characters, and they come out far more two-dimensional than the random people on the street.  I feel like someone like John Lewis (Stephan James, whom I'm hoping we see more of) is probably the best-portrayed of the characters you actually learn the name of, as his journey seems more complete.  These absences of character development feel more to do with the script not fleshing out or (quite frankly) having the time to flesh out these characters, but it still feels like these moments don't have the emotional power that the anonymous scenes do.

It would be foolish, of course, to not look at the controversy surrounding this film, particularly in regard to President Johnson's portrayal in the movie.  I don't feel like Ava DuVernay's job is to vindicate Lyndon Johnson, who did have a major role in the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act, though he was initially resistant to include the legislation in his extremely bold second term agenda (few presidents have attempted to push such an ambitious agenda during such a short window as LBJ did in 1965-66).  There are countless books by the likes of Robert Caro that paint an exhaustive portrayal of our 36th President, and I don't think there's a particular stomping on the former president's legacy to warrant the dismissive attitude of the film from some corners of the political sphere.

I will say, of course, that perhaps the reasons for this quick willingness to dismiss a film like Selma is that it feels uncomfortably reminiscent of some of the actions of the past few years in the United States in terms of attitudes toward racial discrimination.  It's impossible to look at the events in Selma and not think of Ferguson Missouri or Trayvon Martin or Oscar Grant or any number of recent cases of police brutality against innocent black men and question the progress we have made from the time period of Selma.  Frequently I feel like people want to relegate the Civil Rights movement to the annals of history, but anyone who has paid attention to the news in the past year know that this is other foolishness or naivete.  I loathe when critics bring up this term because it recalls someone standing in front of a blank canvass at the MoMA, but Selma is deeply relevant to our times.  It's a wonderfully felt reminder of why the Civil Rights movement needed to happen, why the Voting Rights Act was so incredibly important in our nation's history, and that we sadly have not yet overcome.