Tag Archives: Selma

The Boys in the Boat

The book was better. I’ve never read the book but I know it was better than the movie version of The Boys in the Boat. 

If you enjoy cliché-ridden sports stories about individuals and/or teams who overcome steep odds to claim victory in their field of competition, then this movie is for you. I myself was bored with this film.

Okay, a few positives: The depiction of Seattle’s Depression-era shantytown was impressive, no matter whether it was real or partly computer generated. The moving grandstand, on a rail car I guess, which allowed spectators to move parallel to the crew teams as they moved down the Hudson River is cool. And the overhead shots of the sculls racing along provide a pleasing images.

A big negative: Director George Clooney chose Joel Edgerton to play Al Ulbrickson, coach of the University of Washington crew team. The team goes on—spoiler alert—to represent the U.S. at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Sorry, but to me it just seems wrong to cast as the leader of Team USA… an Aussie! No disrespect to Edgerton, a fine actor, but were there no Americans available for this role? 

That’s not as bad as Ava DuVarney’s casting of Brits to play MLK, LBJ and George Wallace in her movie Selma. That still stinks!

Another positive: The Boys in the Boat is rated PG-13. So you can take the whole family. There’s romance that’s sweet and innocent and only one veiled reference to sex (but it’s married couple sex, so that’s okay.) Little kids might be amused if they’ve never seen any of these kinds of stories. And even 90-somethings might dig a movie set within their lifespans. But overall, this is ground that has be trod by makers of sports movies time and time again. Although… there are not many films about rowing. (Unless you count the rowing in the recent Lessons in Chemistry.)

If Nana loved Emma Stone in La La Land and thinks that the movie Poor Things looks interesting, steer her instead to The Boys in the Boat. She may nod off during TBITB, but she is also less likely to walk out ashen-faced.

The Boys in the Boat is the kind of movie that Nick Saban might take his Bama team to see the night before they face Michigan. It emphasizes teamwork, stick-to-it-ivness, conditioning and all that. Or, maybe not, since it’s a lily-white cast of characters. As mentioned before, and merits mentioning again, the film is rated PG-13.

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Suffragette

In century-ago London, women are getting angry. They want the right to vote but it is not forthcoming. They make noise. They create chaos. They get attention.

Suffragette, a grim tale of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) and her cohorts, shows the actions taken to get government leaders to acknowledge their demands. When Maud witnesses suffragettes throwing rocks to break store windows, she gets fired up and joins in.

She works in a laundry, where she and other female coworkers are subject to verbal and physical abuse by their male bosses. These men are not happy with her activism. She’s married with a young son at home. But her involvement in the cause leads to the breakup of her family and, ultimately, incarceration. (Ben Whishaw is Mr. Watts.)

While the film is inspired by real-life events, most of the characters including Maud Watts are fictional. Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) is a real person who is the leader of the movement. Because Pankhurst lives her life in hiding, Streep’s presence in the movie is fleetingly brief. Other women in the cast include Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press and Romola Garai.

Like certain other period films, Suffragette is generally devoid of color. Clothing is mostly black and white, settings are dark and poorly lighted and sepia tones are occasionally employed by director Sarah Gavron. (The film was written by a woman, Abi Morgan.)

It’s always great to see Brendan Gleason in a movie; in Suffragette he’s a police inspector who has several conversations with Maud. He’s concerned that the movement will generate a martyr, perhaps from the hunger strike Maud stages while in prison. In the end, it is a martyr who becomes a touchstone for change in women’s suffrage in the U.K.

Sadly, Suffragette disappoints on many levels. The second-class status of women is plainly stated but the depths of anguish this condition causes in not deeply explored. Compared to, say, Norma Rae or Selma, Suffragette fails to build empathy for those who are beaten down. Feminists may experience strong emotional connections to these characters, but it’s likely a general audience will not.

Then again, I am a male. As Maud Watts points out, half the people in the world are female. I found the storytelling less than compelling but, hey, women sometimes have different viewpoints from men. (Editor’s note: “sometimes?????”) Certainly, women’s rights is an important issue, but I call Suffragette a nice try that falls short.

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Selma

 

Selma is a powerful and moving film that spotlights a brief episode in America’s civil rights movement. Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo) is a man who can remain calm and non-violent but can also ignite an audience with his fiery delivery from a pulpit. Selma is billed as a true story, although many have questioned the accuracy of certain key plot elements.

The historic Civil Rights act passed Congress in 1964 but, as the movie begins, blacks in the South are still not allowed to register to vote. King visits President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) in the White House and asks that the administration support federal voting rights legislation. LBJ is hesitant and continually puts off MLK.

King and his lieutenants choose Selma, Alabama, as the place to begin a march to the state capitol in Montgomery, about 50 miles away. King’s group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) has disagreements with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) about tactics. Despite resistance from Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth) and sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston), the march begins. The police attack the marchers.

For decades Martin Luther King has been seen mainly as an icon, in video and audio clips and photos. Selma humanizes the man. He’s shown sharing social occasions with his SCLC colleagues. He works to engage the SNCC crew, which has similar goals, but wants a greater share of the glory. King’s womanizing is addressed as wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) listens to FBI-provided tapes of an extramarital liaison.

There has been a chorus of uproar from individuals about the film’s depiction of Lyndon Johnson and his commitment to King and voting rights for blacks. Diane McWhorter who wrote Carry Me Home, a book about the civil rights effort in my and her hometown of Birmingham, has said, “With the portrayal of L.B.J., I kept thinking, ‘Not only is this not true, it’s the opposite of the truth.’”

In all movies that tell true-life stories, a filmmaker may embellish the narrative to add drama and conflict. Is director Ava DuVernay’s alleged sin regarding LBJ so egregious that it renders the film meaningless? Certainly not.

The film’s depictions of the disrespect, the beatings, the shootings and the bombings suffered by blacks in Alabama in the 1960s are brutal and direct. I believe they reflect what actually happened.

I find it ironic though that for this story, a vital part of America’s volatile 20th century history, DuVernay has chosen British actors to portray King, LBJ, George Wallace and even Coretta Scott King. One would think that there are capable American actors available to play these truly American roles.

 

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