SELMA (PG-13)
Released by Paramount Pictures
Review by Adam Mast
In America, It doesn’t appear to be fashionable right now to suggest that you like SELMA and AMERICAN SNIPER. It’s either one or the other. Admittedly though, I’ve never been one for fashion. I like both movies quite a bit.
SELMA follows Martin Luther King Jr. as he launches a campaign that would offer equal voting rights in a racially turbulent south, during the mid ’60s. The campaign would ultimately find the peaceful equal rights activist organizing a march from Selma to Montgomery following a racially motivated church bombing that claimed the lives of four young black girls.
With the awful events that recently transpired in Ferguson, there is no doubt that SELMA is a hot topic movie, and while it’s debatable as to whether or not you can compare 1965’s peaceful march to that of the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson incident, it’s clear that prejudice still exists in America and it goes far beyond the color barrier. Therefore, SELMA is an important movie for a myriad of reasons so don’t just look at the film as a history lesson. Look at it as a movie about now.
SELMA was directed with great reverence by the gifted Ava DuVernay, from a screenplay by Paul Webb. The movie humanizes this snapshot in time in a way I wasn’t entirely prepared for. DuVernay is careful to avoid depicting King as just a saint on an equal rights mission. King was a man and like most men, he was flawed. SELMA delves into a handful of indiscretions during his marriage and even offers up a few moments of self doubt during a pivotal time in King’s monumentally important life. There will be those who look at SELMA as an agenda movie and there will be those who question the vilifying of many of the white characters as depicted here, but to do so would be to miss the real point of this thoughtful movie.
David Oyelowo is sensational as King, and while award shows are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, it’s a real shame he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for his work here. He brings so much humanity to this movie. He nails the speeches, but it’s the tiny nuances – his ability to make us look at King as a man rather than just a historical icon that truly impress. As fantastic as Oyelowo is, he’s backed by a stellar roster of supporting players including Carmen Ejogo, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Wilkinson, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth, Dylan Baker, Common, and Nigel Thatch.
AMERICAN SNIPER has been criticized for romanticizing the life of a man many folks perceived to be nothing more than a cold blooded killer. It has also been criticized for taking very little time, if any time at all, at giving us any real insight into the psychology of the enemy. Likewise, SELMA has been attacked in some circles for being one sided, and for its refusal to breathe any sort of real life into it’s white characters.
Reality check: as is the case with countless movies based on history, we should all be reminded that SELMA and AMERICAN SNIPER are both “inspired” by real life events. Neither one is necessarily 100% historically accurate and furthermore, since both of these hot topic movies were made by people, we also need to be reminded that perspectives are going to seep in. Why? Because these are movies made by passionate individuals with opinions and thoughts on the world we live in.
When dealing with heavy, hard hitting, real-life issues like race and war, things are never–no pun intended–black and white. This is complex stuff and the passionate film-makers behind the making of this heartfelt movie, want viewers to really think about what’s going on in the world. SELMA isn’t necessarily just a history lesson. We’re living in troubling times and while movies don’t necessarily solve those problems outright, they do get a dialogue going and that’s an important first step.
Love SELMA or dislike it. Agree with what it has to say or disagree. Just continue to talk about it because we can’t make this world a better place without first having a dialogue about how to make it a better place. That’s really what Martin Luther King was all about and at its heart, that’s what the thoughtful new movie, “Selma” is all about too.
