As a depiction of the US Civil Rights Movement of the
1960's, 'Selma' leaves you in no doubt as to how much of a struggle it
was. Against entrenched, often violent
racism, and intransigent political will - and not to forget militant voices
from their own community - it took the movement years to achieve its aims of
overcoming segregation and winning protection of the right to vote for Black
people. And they achieved this under
the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr (played here by David Oyelowo), guided
by non-violent principles, inspired by the Christian faith of many at the
forefront of the movement. This film
makes for a powerful history lesson, one that has relevance to recent news events,
and is anchored by great acting throughout.
However, if you're not aware of the exact historical context that much
of this film takes place in, it is easy to feel lost in the midst of historical
figures that the film does little to clarify.
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| Oyelowo stands out in his superlative performance of Martin Luther King Jr. |
Selma is the name of a town in Alabama where the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) - the lead activists of the Civil Rights
Movement - plan a series of protests to highlight that Black people are being
obstructed from registering to vote by unreasonable restrictions and
requirements laid down by the White-run registrars in many parts of Alabama. King asks the incumbent President of the
time, Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to press for legislation to make these obstructions
illegal. Whilst the President is
supportive of Civil Rights as a whole, he has his own political agenda which he'd
prefer King would get behind. But the
Civil Rights leader will not be moved, and so a series of peaceful demonstrations
are held, including an attempted march from Selma to the State Capital, Montgomery,
to further highlight the issue. Along
the way there is police brutality towards the peaceful Black protesters, and
the racist element of the local White population. To make matters worse, President Johnson
requests the FBI try underhand tactics to discourage Luther King from carrying
on with the protests - by trying to contribute to the cracks in his marriage
with Coretta (Carmen Ejogo).
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| The film is honest about the strains in King's marriage to wife Coretta (Ejogo) |
Initially, coming to this subject with only a vague
knowledge of Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, I found it hard to keep
track of the various figures and locations; for example, I thought Wilkinson
was playing President Nixon at first! It doesn't help that little time is spent identifying each of the leaders of the
SCLC. However, this initial
disorientation doesn't last long - firstly, due to a number of shocking acts of
violence that leave you in no doubt about the urgency of the movement and what
it stands for; and secondly, because all of the performances are uniformly
great throughout the film. It is
understandable that, as the figurehead of the movement, the film focuses a lot
on King himself, and Oyelowo's performance is fantastic. He plays him with a quietly burning
determination, softly spoken and a times thoughtful when he is one-to-one with
people, and of course the inspiring orator when he is addressing a congregation
or a rally. The film effectively
portrays the burden on his personal life by his involvement and steadfast
commitment to the movement, addressing the difficulties in his marriage,
including acknowledging that he was unfaithful to his wife. Similarly, the movement as a whole is
depicted as having had issues to deal with, such as the militancy represented
by Malcolm X (appearing here as a cameo played by Nigel Thatch), disagreements
about delaying a protest or not, and alienating the leaders of a local student organisation
that had been campaigning on the issue.
On the whole though, there is little in the way of dirt-dishing carried
out on either King or the rest of the movement's leadership - whilst this might
feel like a missed opportunity to some, it would be disingenuous in the face of
the struggles the movement faced and what it achieved through non-violence.
On the whole, the film is an effective and enlightening
portrayal of a specific moment in the history of the Civil Rights movement -
like many other recent biopics, it is respectful and knows when to evoke the
right emotions to keep the audience invested.
Occasionally the script might feel like it crosses a line from
authenticity to edification - a couple of short monologues about the need not
to respond to violence with violence reinforce the ideals of the movement, but
seem a bit too neat to feel like they were likely to have been said at that
moment. Also, with such a large cast not
everyone is allowed enough time to move beyond a sketchy outline; and it's
disappointing that the only weak link acting wise is the unconvincing, almost caricature of a southern drawl affected by Tim Roth as the Governor of
Alabama.
But these don't detract from a thought provoking and well-made
depiction of an important moment in the history of the US Civil Rights
Movement, and of its talismanic figurehead.
Oyelowo is the stand out from this uniformly solid cast, it is still unbelievable
he has not received many Awards nods for his performance. But most of all the film has contemporary
resonance, following a year in which US cities have seen protests regarding questionable acts of police violence towards unarmed Black people.
The relevance extends to my home country, the UK: in the final speech,
King talks about people who are left to live in poverty being distracted from
this by leaders who convince them of their superiority over another group of people.
I couldn't help but think of how, in this country, we have a media, controlled by
self-interested wealthy elites, that frequently tells the masses that people on
benefits or immigrants are the cause of their problems - whilst the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows steeper. With this in mind, it seems in this country
there is still a lot we could take from King and the Civil Rights Movement.
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