Black power

Now it can be told -- Selma (MC-89, #13, NFX) would have been my pick for “Best Picture.”  As much as I love Boyhood, which is at least as good a film in itself, Selma wins my vote (as did Lincoln) for believably portraying an historical moment of extreme contemporary relevance.  David Oyelowo deserves tremendous credit for seeing himself in the role of MLK, and shepherding this script into production, but Ava DuVernay deserves even more for taking on the task of revising the script and directing the film, after several directors had passed due to shaky financing.  The money finally came from the UK (with Oprah and Brad Pitt pitching in), which may explain why four central roles -- Martin and Coretta, LBJ and George Wallace – were played by Brits.  (Maybe the Academy did not want to honor two films in row that had furriners looking into American race relations.)

It took an African-American woman to keep it real.  Thank goodness this story didn’t wind up in the hands of a Lee Daniels or Tate Taylor.  Rather than one great man as hero, we get a group portrait of a movement, including women as well as the young and the old, at a moment of high drama, leading to three successive attempts by civil rights marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during March 1965.  The film maintains an impressive aura of authenticity.  Oyelowo is a perfect King, and Carmen Ejogo is spot-on as Coretta.  Tom Wilkinson convinces as LBJ, despite little physical similarity, and brings a humanity that refutes those who think the film diminishes his contribution to voting rights.  The supporting actors match up so well with their real-life counterparts that it becomes relatively easy to keep track of the diverse cast of characters.  (Though it helps if you know beforehand the differences between SCLC and SNCC, and other movement arcana.)

The collective heroism of the movement develops from individual acts of courage and conscience, through scenes of strategic deliberation and profound balancing of means and ends, to grand set pieces of confrontation staged on the actual sites.  With the Supreme Court recently gutting key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this film could not come at a better time, to show why such legislation is necessary, even for those who think the only good thing about Obama is that his election proves that “racism is over.”  Voter suppression remains a widespread strategy, and sanctioned police violence against unarmed black citizens goes on and on.  Selma is stirring, timely, and completely believable, even though the filmmakers didn’t have permission to use Dr. King’s actual speeches.  (Excellent extras on the DVD as well.)

Ava DuVernay did not exactly come out of nowhere, as I discovered when I caught up with The Middle of Nowhere (2012, MC-75, NFX).  David Oyelowo has a key supporting role, which is how he connected with her.  But this film belongs to the radiant and effortlessly expressive Emayatzy Corinealdi, who plays a nurse waiting, Penelope-like, for her husband to return from jail.  While he serves his sentence -- with luck, only four years -- she lives a bare existence in Compton, with only her severe mother, plus a single sister with nephew, as company, until her regular bus driver (Oyelowo) draws her out.  This film makes a lot out of a little; a joyful noise out of still, quiet moments; deep meaning out of simple life lived.

It’s worth pointing out that Ms. DuVernay’s two films showcase an emerging cinematographer, Bradford Young, with another good-looking new film to his credit, A Most Violent Year (MC-79, NFX), in which writer-director J. C. Chandor shifts gears from Margin Call and All is Lost, to confirm himself as a filmmaker always worth watching.  Young’s camerawork gives this tale of New York’s underbelly in 1981 a real Godfather glow (and Oyelowo turns up again, as a DA).  Oscar Isaac -- as an immigrant son who has risen in the oil delivery business from driver to salesman to owner (through the expedient of marrying the shady boss’s daughter, Jessica Chastain) – tries to keep within the letter of the law, but lawless forces draw him up to and over the line.  Albert Brooks is excellent as Isaac’s lawyer – go ahead and call him consigliere.  The naturalistic atmosphere of this film is remarkable, in a NYC tradition that runs from On the Waterfront through Serpico.  With Kazan and Lumet, Chandor is in good company indeed.

To circle back to the theme of this round-up, Night Catches Us (2010, MC-65, NFX) depicts a group of Black Panthers in Philadelphia some years after their heyday.  Anthony Mackie returns from prison, and into the orbit of Kerry Washington, the widow of his compatriot shot by the police.  She’s gone to law school and is raising her daughter alone.  (“Bunk” and “Marlo” from The Wire also turn up in the generally excellent cast.)  Though using documentary footage from the 60s, Tanya Hamilton’s promising debut film, set in 1976, takes a thoughtfully domestic look back at the Panthers.

And to give the theme a different perspective, try Girlhood (MC-85, NFX).  Céline Sciamma’s film is about a gang of Parisian girls from African backgrounds, who are powerful indeed.  We first see them playing American football, tackling in full pads, suggesting the sort of gender confusion that the director also explores in Tomboy.  We soon focus on one heartbreakingly-beautiful 15-year-old, played by Karidja Touré.  She is adopted into a trio of tough girls, straightens her dreadlocks and adopts their dress code of denim and leather, as well as their delinquent ways.  The film explores the adolescent quest for identity and the nature of sisterhood, as well as the economic, sexual, and racial constraints of those on the margins.  With this film reminiscent of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, I urge you to mark Ms. Sciamma as a director to follow.