Review: Selma

DOI 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2015/03/10 Christiane Hadamitzky 97 Review: Selma After Steven Spielberg’s celebrated film Lincol n, citizens to register as voters in Selma has led to Ava DuVernay’s Selma portrays another cen- imprisonment and tempers are hot. After having tral figure of American cultural memory. Her unsuccessfully appealed to President Lyndon cine matic approach to Martin Luther King, Jr. B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), Martin Luther is – simila r to Lincoln – not a film which presents King travels to Selma in hopes of turning things its protagonist’s lifetime highlights, but focuses around. The conflict between the activists and on one pivotal point in his career, the fight for the the white establishment in the film is effectively 1965 Voting Rights Act and its symbolic epitomi- condensed into the three marches from Selma sation in the three marches from Selma to Mont- to Montgomery in 1965 and, even more specifi- gomery. cally, the crossing of Edmund Pettus Bridge in The film opens on the night of the Nobel Selma. The three marches give the narrative Peace Prize ceremony in 1964 with a black its structure and with the crossing of the bridge screen and the sound of King practicing his also creates a reification of their attempt to cross speech. The lack of a visual gives the very first the boundary society has drawn around them. lines, which David Oyelowo delivers in a voice In dramatic visuals, the camera shows the mass and enunciation hauntingly close to King’s, ad- of activists stepping on the bridge and facing the ditional weight and sets the tone for the rest of armed establishment on the other side. The po- the movie: “I accept this honour for our lost ones, lice force trying to prevent them from crossing whose death pave our path and for the twenty becomes an embodiment of the establishment’s million negro men and women motivated by dig- reluctance to let African-Americans enter soci- nity and the disdain for hopelessness.” (Selma: ety with all the duties and rights this may entail. 00:01:10) DuVernay in these scenes of public activism Introduced by the Prize Committee as the directs the camera cleverly, often letting it follow “undeterred hero of justice” (00:03:10), King de- the marchers and thereby creating the allusion livers the lines, which are then illustrated. In a that the audience is part of the community. painfully impressive sequence, King’s glamorous As a public figure, King is shown as an engag- evening is juxtaposed with a church bombing in ing and passionate speaker, which is impressive 1963 that cost the lives of four African-American given the fact that the film could not use King’s girls. The explosion, which catches its young vic- actual speeches. Since the copyright on King’s tims as they are chatting about Coretta King’s speeches is exclusively held by another produc- hairstyle, is affectively brought to the screen in a tion company, Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks, one-minute long slow motion scene. The visuali- the speeches and sermons shown in Selma are sation of violence and the sympathy it evokes for texts which DuVernay wrote herself in the style the victims also hint at another general feature of of King. King’s private character is depicted as Selma: it is not a subtle film. one of a political strategist who clearly knows One year after King’s celebrated “I Have how to calculate his opponents’ reactions and a Dream” speech, the film is set in an atmo- does not shy away from provoking and utilising sphere of public validation for King by the Nobel the violence that the activists face. In the combi- Academy on the one side and continued vio- nation of his public and private persona, Selma lence and discrimination for his community on shows King as a heroic figure who knows how to the other. In this climate, King is shown torn be- inflame and mollify people at the same time. tween the White House, which woos him for a In the dramatisation of the marches and job among their ranks, and his fight for the rights the violence it incited – DuVernay herself calls of African-Americans, which politicians are re- violence a “primary character” (“Making of”: luctant to pursue further. Against this backdrop, 00:08:40) of the film – the film paints an emphat- the film zooms in on the fight for voting rights ic picture of the Civil Rights Movement which en- in Selma, Alabama. Efforts by African-American gages the viewers and directs their sympathies helden. heroes. héros. Christiane Hadamitzky 98 without being overly didactic. The division be- Works Cited tween the establishment and the activists is, for Selma. Dir. Ava DuVernay. DVD. ArtHaus, 2015. example, subtly reflected in the colour schemes used. While Johnson, FBI Director J. Edgar “Making of” Selma. Dir. Ava DuVernay. DVD. ArtHaus, 2015. Hoover (Dylan Baker) and Alabama Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth) are shot in cold arti- ficial lighting in the primary colours of white and blue, the activists wear colourful clothes and are often shown in a warm light. Thereby, the visual also support the film’s portrayal of the activists as a community in contrast to the white male politicians who are shown fighting to maintain their own power. Nevertheless, there is tension in Selma; Du- Vernay proclaims to “tell the truth” (“Making of”: 00:01:40), the story of “ordinary people [who] change the course of history” (ibid.: 00:22:28). She attempts this, for example, by juxtaposing scenes from King’s private life with descriptions of the same events from FBI logs displayed on the screen, which both authenticate events as well as create sympathy for those under surveil- lance. However, the style of the film at the same time dramatises the incidents at times in the style of a gangster movie, undercutting the claim to be as realistic as possible. Furthermore, the film’s portrayal of President Johnson has been widely criticised for its historical inaccuracy. The fact that many viewers felt that Johnson’s character had been constructed too negatively and flat shows clearly how dramatization oftentimes is incompatible with attempt to tell “the truth”. Thus, the way in which both King and other protagonists are depicted can be related back to the conventions of biopics: In order to create an impressive hero, the biopic genre needs an opponent which can equally excite emotions in the audience. Within these genre conventions, King is defined against representatives on two sides: firstly, the white establishment, the three representatives of which are clearly constructed as the villains against which King shines even brighter as a hero-figure. Secondly, he is demar- cated from activists such as Malcolm X, whose willingness to resort to violence emphasises King’s extraordinarily moral position within the community of civil rights activism. One might have thought that the hero-status of King was already established through his lifetime achieve- ments and thus would have allowed for a more rounded representation of Johnson; however, Selma relies on the convention of contrasting a hero with a number of villains without nuances in between. In this way, the film uses a technique to draw attention to its protagonist and direct the viewers’ sympathies which neither the historical events nor the impressive performance by David Oyelowo would have required to enhance them. helden. heroes. héros. .

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