Selma

One notable upside to the middling cinematic year of 2014 is a maturing of the biopic genre, with a welcome rebellion against its many predictable tropes and clichés. Movies like Mr. Turner, The Railway Man, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Tracks, Wild, and Belle all circumvented the traditional formulas of fact-based pictures by exploring the souls and personas of their central characters through stories properly proportioned to the scale of a feature film narrative. The year ends with the release of the timeliest and most provocative of these movies: Ava DuVernay’s Selma. Though Selma will undoubtedly be called a biopic, given its focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., almost nothing about it falls in that stifling classification. It’s a film about a movement, not just a man. It has far more in common with this year’s Pride, the small British picture that dramatizes one tiny chapter in the decades-long struggle for gay rights in the UK, than it has with epics that attempt to tell the soup-to-nuts life story of an important political figure—like Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), Spike Lee’s Malcom X (1992), or Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995). Above all, Selma is a historically informative picture with undeniable contemporary relevance. 

The movie examines the events surrounding the 1965 marches for voting rights that were organized and lead by Dr. King and his fellow civil rights leaders James Bevel, Hosea Williams, and John Lewis. The three peaceful protest marches were attempts to walk the 54-mile highway that stretches between the small, predominantly black city of Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, in defiance of that state’s (and much of the segregated South’s) blatant repression of black people’s newly won right to vote. The marches were one of the signature and most impactful achievements in Dr. King’s tireless, nonviolent quest for racial equality in America. They lead directly to President Lyndon Johnson’s introduction and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—considered the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted in the USA.

Selma is the first produced screenplay by Paul Webb, a British high school teacher turned petro-chemical communications consultant. Webb recently set the American and UK film industry buzzing when he turned to writing in his 50s and penned half a dozen scripts that quickly got optioned by major Hollywood players. Brad Pitt’s company Plan B originally developed the project for director Lee Daniels (Precious, The Paperboy). When Daniels jumped ship to make The Butler (2013), the movie was taken over and substantially reworked by Ava DuVernay.  An accomplished film marketer and distributer, DuVernay received critical acclaim for the documentary This Is the Life (2008) and the narrative feature I Will Follow (2011). She was the first African-American woman to win the Best Director award at Sundance, for her sublime sophomore feature Middle of Nowhere (2012). Nevertheless, she is hardly the type of proven, box-office credentialed filmmaker normally placed at the helm of a high profile, Oscar-baiting picture. Yet her unique voice and untraditional approach are just right for Selma. Largely on the strength of these qualities, her film side-steps our jaded suppositions and delivers a far more moving experience than cynical audience members or viewers weary of biopics might anticipate.

Of course, one thing we do expect in a picture of this sort is an Oscar-caliber lead performance. We get one, but it, too, is not what we might presume. David Oyelowo plays Martin Luther King, Jr., in one of the least showy performances ever given in a fact-based, prestige picture.  An outstanding British character actor, Oyelowo is best known for his supporting roles in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, and Lee Daniels' The Butler—in which his depiction of the freedom rider son of the fictional titular character played by Forest Whitaker was the best aspect of that movie. Here, Oyelowo’s understated, sober depiction of King transforms the icon into a flesh-and-blood character without ever diminishing the esteemed leader’s eminence or inspirational power. The MLK depicted in Selma is a tired man with many hard fought achievements behind him, but a long ways away from attaining his goals. Even in the opening moments depicting King’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize—a scene where we might expect jubilance—he appears exhausted and despondent. 

The film’s somber tone is as surprising, and as impressively effective, as it’s gradual pacing. The energy, which ebbs and flows throughout the picture, mirrors the way King’s quiet, pragmatic, everyday persona contrasts with his dramatic, resolute speeches. It moves from intimate scenes of stately tranquility to rousing sequences that evoke strong, emotional responses in the viewer. DuVernay wisely avoids trying to “get to the heart” of what makes the great man tick. Instead, she explores his objectives, strategies, and external contradictions. She focuses on King’s deeds, not his psychology. Her film draws us in by exploring the tactics of the civil rights movement in intriguing historic detail without ever seeming like an academic exercise.

With its modest budget, conservative running time, uninspired compositions, and an overreliance on close-ups, Selma often feels like a premium cable TV movie rather than an epic film. DuVernay is no Steven Spielberg when it comes to visual storytelling, yet her unflashy docudrama trumps Spielberg’s own historical epic about a great civil rights leader—the self-important and ostentatious Lincoln (2012). She and Webb never attempt to turn their simple, straightforward movie into the ultimate cinematic statement on an iconic figure. Whereas Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner muddled their narrative about President Lincoln’s diplomatic campaign to emancipate the slaves at the end of the Civil War, DuVernay never gives in to the temptation to make her picture any grander, more dramatically complex, or portentously “important” than it is by its own nature. The film is called Selma, not King. She does not attempt to tell the entire life story of her protagonist, nor does she shoehorn into the movie a cluster of overt interpersonal subplots designed to make her main character more “relatable”.

Selma is as disciplined and patient a movie as King was a leader. DuVernay and Webb limit their story to the three months that led up to the marches for voting rights. We get scenes with King’s wife, Coretta (Carmen Ejogo); his sometime political partner and sometime antagonist in the White House, LBJ (Tom Wilkinson); and even his rival for black leadership, Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch). But these interactions are limited to meetings that directly affected the marches and actually occurred during this brief chapter in King’s life. The filmmakers have no need of voiceovers, contemporary characters looking back on the past with hindsight, clips of vintage TV news reports, or ghostly appearances by long-dead loved ones come to offer their incorporeal counsel. In fact (due to copyright issues and a potential rival MLK film) the movie doesn’t even lean on direct quotations from any of the eloquent orator’s speeches. The only device that DuVernay and Webb use is a series of superimposed titles from FBI surveillance logs that state the dates and bare-bone details of King’s comings and goings at the top of several scenes. In addition to orienting the viewer, these titles remind us that King (like many other civil rights leaders) was under constant observation by his government.  Conservative forces, resistant to change, were always looking for ways to undermine him and his cause.

DuVernay’s astute avoidance of most cinematic conceits and hackneyed methods of narrative shorthand gives Selma an unvarnished credibility that so many other historical docudramas lack. She, Webb, and Oyelowo find ways to illuminate the internal inconsistencies in King without stooping to armchair psychoanalysis and without reducing the multifaceted relationships he had with his wife, children, and fellow activists into easily understandable dramaturgy. Most everything we need to know about the figures in this struggle is conveyed through interactions, not speeches. Like DeVernay’s previous pictures, the emotional arc is put across through naturalistic performances. It is perhaps not surprising that English actors, who have an uncanny ability to disappear into real-life roles, play four of the key parts in this very American movie. In addition to Oyelowo, Wilkinson, and Ejogo, Tim Roth brings courtliness and human dimension to his portrayal of the staunchly conservative obstructionist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace—a man often depicted as a dismissible caricature or stock villain in historical movies.

The filmmakers behind Selma did not have the rights to use King’s actual words in the picture. King's speeches remain the property of his combative heirs, who in 2009, after much squabbling, licensed these rights to DreamWorks and Warner Brothers for a more conventional, large-scale biopic that Spielberg intends to produce. While the idea of doing an unsanctioned film about Dr. King without the use of his actual words might seem like a dubious undertaking, it in no way hinders the power of the film.  Often when restrictions are placed on filmmakers (especially sharp low-budget writer/directors like DuVernay), the limitations engender both economy and poetry in the storytelling. The director and screenwriter had to find ways of conveying the essence of King’s speeches without using his actual texts, and they did.

In addition, they needed to tailor the script to their financier’s relatively small 20-million-dollar budget, something indie industry pros like DuVernay and her producing partner Paul Garnes excel at.  In their hands, Selma was transformed from a Frost/Nixon-like treatment with big stars and a marquee director that focused specifically on the relationship between MLK and LBJ (as Webb’s script intended) into a more grassroots affair. There’s no way to be sure, but I expect this modest movie is far closer in spirit to King’s legacy than an expensive, high-gloss film would be, as filmed by Daniels, Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, Spike Lee, or any of the other name directors who’ve attempted for years now to get a big MLK picture off the ground.

For decades the King estate has placed obstacles in front of filmmakers and studios eager to make a movie about this major American figure. Thus, it has taken far longer for a feature about King to come out than it did for so many other icons of the civil rights movement. But again, the obstructions have resulted in positive consequences, enabling the first major feature about MLK, to appear at just the time when it is most needed.

It is astounding to think of how differently this film would have played had it been released just a few years earlier, instead of in 2014. Had it come out on the heels of Barak Obama’s election, this same picture would have felt infinitely more triumphant and celebratory—as if the immeasurable struggle King and so many others labored, suffered, and died for had reached a zenith. A future where race no longer mattered in America seemed far more attainable then. But Selma arrives in theaters just weeks after the shootings of unarmed black men by police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York City sparked a series of demonstrations and violent confrontations. The debates, protests, and counter-protests occurring concurrent to, but independent of, this film’s release illustrate how far America still has to go before racial equality is achieved. And making it even more profoundly timely, Selma comes out the same year that the Supreme Court invalidated critical parts of the Voting Rights Act—the very legislation that King and his followers fought for and achieved, as depicted in this movie.

Selma serves as a powerful history lesson on why the country needed the VotingRights Act in the first place, and it evokes the long, disgraceful legacy of police brutality against minorities, a problem still very much with us today. But the film also makes a strong statement to progressives and those who fight for equality, reminding social activists about the importance of leaders with attainable goals. Like all of King’s demonstrations, speeches, and protest actions, the marches from Selma to Montgomery were not simply an occupation of the streets; they were part of a series of strategically organized undertakings with meaningful, tangible, clearly articulated aims. Selma is a wake-up call to today’s all-or-nothing radicals about the need for intelligent, pragmatic leaders who do more than make hollow speeches or jump on fashionable bandwagons. It shows how progress comes about via a long, slow series of difficult decisions, and it demonstrates that even the greatest torchbearers are flawed human beings with their own set of personal challenges and confusions.

It’s impossible not to view Selma within the context of contemporary race relations, political stagnancy, and the ineffectiveness of modern leaders. In fact, present-day analogues often overshadow the film’s rich period details and themes. Yet this eclipsing does not represent a weakness of the picture. On the contrary, Selma’s salience for 2014 audiences makes it far more vital and meaningful than the typical historical film Hollywood usually delivers. Rather than comforting an audience by enabling us to feel superior to our unenlightened counterparts in dark days long ago, the picture confronts its viewers by showing us behaviors and attitudes that are undeniably still part of our nation. Yet Selma is never scolding, hectoring, or fatalistic. The film simply, directly, and humbly reminds us that we cannot yet take our eyes off the prize.