Film review: Selma by Jean Oppenheimer

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Film review of Selma by Jean Oppenheimer

One of the best films of the year, Selma focuses on a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement, the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to protest the entrenched discrimination that kept black citizens off the voting rolls throughout the South. It took three attempts by the activists, a ruling from a federal judge, and the introduction of national voting rights legislation by President Lyndon Johnson before the demonstrators succeeded in crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge and completing the 54-mile journey.

Selma opens with King (a mesmerizing performance by David Oyelowo), self-conscious in tails and striped ascot, preparing to accept his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10, 1964. There is a gentle, humorous tone to the scene as his wife, Coretta Scott King (an equally fine Carmen Ejogo), teases him about his concern that the folks back home in Georgia might think he is putting on airs by wearing such formal attire.

Nothing in this warm, engaging sequence prepares viewers for the explosion of violence that follows in the next scene, another pivotal event in the struggle for equal rights. Director Ava DuVernay takes poetic license with the dates of these two events; King actually was awarded his Nobel Prize more than a year after the incident portrayed in the second scene. But inverting the chronology and placing these two scenes side by side achieves a greater purpose: shocking the audience’s sensibilities and placing viewers squarely in the midst of the struggle about to unfold before them.

Oyelowo invests King with dignity, grace, a streak of sly humor and a recognition of his own imperfections. A man of courage, conscience and commitment, King never mistook himself for the cause he led. The actor not only bears a striking resemblance to the man he portrays but also perfectly captures his body language and stirring voice — the cadence, richness and rhythm that made King such a gifted orator. Oyelowo’s performance is vital, alive and present, so much so that it dispels any sense of sorrow we carry into the theatre, knowing what will transpire on a motel balcony in Memphis less than four years later.

Some of the most provocative and interesting scenes in the film showcase the interactions between King and President Johnson who, although a staunch supporter of civil rights, had hoped to press forward with his Great Society reforms before addressing the black voting rights issue. But King was persistent. He was also strategic, in that he and fellow members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had selected Selma for the march partially because of local sheriff Jim Clark’s reputation for brutality. If things got out of hand, it would attract national attention and put pressure on Johnson.

Things did get out of hand and did put pressure on Johnson. While Tom Wilkinson neither looks nor sounds like Johnson, he conveys the president’s multi-faceted personality: his ruthlessness, his frustrations, his natural empathy for minorities and the poor, his own, deep moral conflicts and the political demands he faced.

Perhaps the film’s most powerful scene is the first attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when state troopers and local police, some on horseback, descended upon the 600 nonviolent men, women and children on the bridge, whipping, clubbing and beating them with disturbing glee. “Bloody Sunday” was captured on television and outraged the nation. Hundreds of white people –- religious leaders of all faiths and everyday citizens –- headed to Selma to lend their support to Dr. King and to take part in “a peaceful, non-violent march for freedom.” The demonstrators, a third of whom were white, turned back on the bridge when Dr. King sensed another possible bloodbath. That night a white Unitarian minister from Massachusetts who had participated in the march was beaten to death by local segregationists, further inflaming public opinion across the nation.

When President Johnson introduced voting rights legislation to Congress in March 1965, he spoke of “the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.” It hardly needs pointing out that today, 50 years after the Voting Rights Acts passed into law, hatreds and divisions between blacks and whites persist. Dr. King knew that the battle would continue; in Selma he says, “one struggle ends just to go on to the next and the next.” One can’t help but wonder, however, whether those words have proven far more prophetic than even Dr. King thought they would.

In 2001 HBO produced an excellent movie titled Boycott, about Martin Luther King and the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Jeffrey Wright was superb as Dr. King (Carmen Ejogo played Coretta Scott King in that film, too). It is well worth checking out at the video store.