13th (2016)

The Best Documentary nomination was what finally made me get my butt in gear to see 13^th, even though I’ve wanted to see it for a while.  I can take streaming movies for granted sometimes – movies in theaters have to be seen within a limited time frame, and DVDs from Netflix have to be watched before they send you new ones, but there’s no real rush with a streaming movie.  I’m glad I finally saw it, though, because it’s very, very good.

Made by Ava DuVernay (Selma, Queen Sugar, the upcoming A Wrinkle in Time(!!!),) 13^th is the story of the 13^th Amendment and all that followed, a documentary about the groundwork that was laid to keep Black people in chains even as they were being freed from slavery.  It’s an ambitious project that covers a lot of ground, but the crux of it comes down to one dependent clause in the amendment:  slavery is abolished, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”  The documentary asserts that direct lines can be drawn between the slavery of centuries past and the criminal justice system of today.

There’s so much here.  The almost instant post-abolition shift to create an image of Black people as dangerous criminals, portraying them as crooks, murderers, and rapists (of white women.)  Using prisoners as a work force, from chain gangs all the way to present-day corporations whose products are made by inmates earning pennies.  Painting the Civil Rights movement, including the non-violence advocates, as dangerous radicals.  The deep ties between politicians and the many groups who profit from keeping the prisons filled.  The campaign to view addiction as a crime rather than a disease.  The suffrage denied to convicted felons.  The Black Panthers, the war on drugs, superpredators, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump – this documentary is packed.

Running through it all like that, 13^th might sound overstuffed, but it really isn’t.  DuVernay builds her case gradually, tying even the most seemingly-disparate threads together from over 150 years of Black demonization and criminalization, and I feel like anyone watching the film would have to try incredibly hard to suggest the connections she’s drawn are mere coincidence.  I won’t say it’s incontrovertible, because goodness knows how contradictory people can be, but it would take a real talent for self-denial to dismiss all that DuVernay has laid out.

Stylistically, it’s very well-done.  It has the usual mix of talking heads, news clips, photographs, and voiceovers, and music is used really effectively throughout.  I also love the simple, powerful device of flashing the word “CRIMINAL” across a black screen in bold white letters every time someone says it, emphasizing how often it’s been spoken, how it was made to creep into our subconscious without our knowing.  And I was bowled over by a montage of Trump egging on his supporters to attack protesters.  I’ve seen these clips juxtaposed with footage of the violence at his rallies before, but DuVernay takes it a step further by incorporating old footage from the Civil Rights movement.  Given Trump’s repeated refrains about what you could to protesters in “the good old days,” it’s chilling to hear those words and see video of Black people being attack on sidewalks, at lunch counters, on marches, especially being met by police with dogs and hoses. 

Warnings

Thematic elements, violence, sexual/drug references, and language (including racial slurs.)