Selma is unusual in that it’s nominated for best
picture and only one other award, best original song. It’s as if voters felt they couldn’t not nominate a film centering around
Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, but at the same time,
they didn’t want to give it more than a token nod. I don’t know why that is. Did they think an MLK picture was too
obviously Oscar bait? Were they put off
by the controversy over the dramatic licenses the film takes (not that Selma is alone in that, of course)? Did they feel they did their duty, black-history-wise,
with 12 Years a Slave last year?
Whatever
the reason, it’s a shame, because it’s a pretty excellent film. All three best picture nominees I’ve seen so far
have been true stories, and this one has the tightest focus. Rather than trying to cover the whole civil
rights movement or large swathes of King’s life, it only examines the SCLC’s
time demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, culminating in the
march from Selma to Montgomery. It doesn’t
shy away from the violence and hatred of the era, directed towards black
would-be voters and demonstrators as well as white allies, and it also shows
the conflicts within the movement itself.
I
really like that – the film allows King to be a great man, a courageous,
impassioned, historically vital man, without deifying him. Most prominently, we see the friction between
SNCC, the activist group doing grassroots work in Selma at the start of the
film, and King’s SCLC. In the eyes of
SNCC, the SCLC rolls into a town, stirs up a lot of trouble and attention,
takes credit if things go well, and then leaves everyone else to deal with any fallout
from their actions. On the subject of
King, SNCC’s leaders are divided as to whether he’s a visionary leader or a
headline-chasing glory hound. King
himself pushes on in his attempts to shake white lawmakers out of their
complacency and stop ignoring the issue of equal voting rights, but while his
conviction in his cause is unwavering, his belief in his own involvement isn’t
so solid. We see his moments of doubt,
his fears about the danger he’s subjected his family to, and his arguments with
those who don’t understand his methods.
It’s a complex, nuanced depiction; the story explores these falters and
uncertainties, but they only serve to humanize King and his mission without
diminishing his strength of character.
David Oyelowo’s performance is more than up to the task of matching the
powerful storytelling.
The
film features a handful of familiar faces:
Oprah, Tom Wilkinson, Giovanni Ribisi, Tessa Thompson (Jackie from Veronica Mars), Lorraine Toussaint (Vee from Orange
is the New Black), Dylan Baker (William Cross from Kings), Tim Roth, Stephen Root, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Alessandro
Nivola (who I know best as Henry Crawford in the Frances O’Connor Mansfield Park.) I also want to single out Henry G. Sanders as
an elderly man still fighting for his right to vote, as well as Nigel Thatch
for his very good, if brief, appearance as Malcolm X.
Warnings
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