Comments on the movie 'Selma'

On Tuesday afternoon we went to see the movie 'Selma', the historical drama about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 to secure voting rights for Negroes in the deep South.  It was directed by Ava DuVernay from a script by Paul Webb. 

Poster for 'Selma'

Maybe the projection equipment at the AMC Lincoln Square sucks, but I suspect that the movie is just murky.  The colors are bleached out and dull.  

The cast is lead by David Oyelowo as Dr. King with Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon Johnson and Tim Roth as Alabama Governor George Wallace.  These three actors inhabit their characters in ways that make you both forget and remember the roles they played in the civil rights movement of the 60's.  Oyelowo has internalized the cadences and sonorities of Dr. King the masterful black orator and strategist -- as well as his insecurities and wariness; Wilkinson leans into the skillful political manipulator LBJ with down home Texas twang and four-letter swagger; Roth gleefully wallows in the racist bigotry of Wallace at his most malevolent.

Oyelowo's accomplishment seems all the more remarkable since he doesn't use quotes from any of Dr. King's famous speeches (which the King family denied the movie makers).

In Alabama, Oyelowo is surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast portraying Ralph Abernathy (Coleman Domingo), Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo), Andrew Young (Andre Holland), John Lewis (Stephan James), Amelia Boynton Robinson (Lorraine Toussaint), Diane Nash (Tessa Thompson), Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) and others too numerous to mention here.

The pacing of the movie is deliberate and the major confrontations and meetings are staged at an epic crawl.  Digressions to less important plot elements and characters saps the film of narrative drive and focus.  The result is an enervating sprawl, rather than the invigorating cascade of events I recall reading about in 1965.  The key events depicted in 'Selma' had an enormous impact on the lives of all black Americans and their place in American society.  In striving to encompass all of the players and their roles the movie fails to sustain the viewer's involvement in their struggle and their accomplishments.  

Banner for 'Selma'.

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It is unfortunate that this movie is being released shortly after a 2013 Supreme Court decision (Shelby County v. Holder) dismantled the most effective elements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing states to proceed with racially motivated redistricting, permitting states to enact onerous voter registration requirements and limit polling hours to suppress minority voting.

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It is equally disturbing to note that Ferguson, MO -- the scene of violent racial disturbances following the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer last August -- where over 67% of its citizens are black, is governed by a white mayor; a city council of 5 white and 1 black council members; and a nearly all-white (50 of 53) police force.  

As 'Selma' rightly points out, black (and some white) people risked and lost their lives to gain the right for black Americans to register to vote -- so they could vote and serve on juries and otherwise enjoy the all rights and responsibilities of American citizenship.  Why haven't the citizens of Ferguson, MO been able to avail themselves of those rights to shape a government that is responsive to their needs -- a government that looks like them?

It is clear from more recent demonstrations across America that the promises of the civil rights movement of the 60's have not succeeded in totally eliminating the racial divide.  Perhaps 50 years is not enough time to undo the damage of hundreds of years of slavery and oppression.  Perhaps the color of our skin or the color of our uniform cannot ever be taken for granted.  Black lives matter; blue lives matter; all lives matter -- in a country that espouses the belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.