Experiencing Evil: 12 Years a Slave

The best movies are not intellectual.  This is not to say that the great movies do not have an intellectual element.  Certainly they do.  The very best films stimulate thinking and conversation.  However, at times also some not so great films do the same thing. 

The greatest films do not remain just in the mind, however, but in the soul.  It stirs your emotions: inspiring awe or anger; inciting romance or rage; stirring tears or trembling.  There is much to consider, but it is also an experience in and of itself.  It puts you in another person’s shoes and, for a moment, allows you to see the world as they see it.  To wear their clothes and allow us to walk around in them, allowing others to react to us as if we were them.

For a few moments, we experienced what it felt like to be a soldier on D-Day in Saving Private Ryan.  We could experience the ethereal beauty of music in The Double Life of Veronique.  We could experience the dread of the supernatural evil in The Exorcist.  We could sense the awe of the desert world in Lawrence of Arabia. We could feel the rage building up in us in Malcolm X.  (Sorry if you didn’t experience those particular feelings when watching those films.  Consumer response may vary.)

Certainly two films this year comes close to that: Gravity, that allows us to float with the astronauts and 12 Years a Slave that give us the barest taste of what it meant to be a slave, if we were not born a slave.

There is much in this film to intellectualize, certainly.  Systemic injustice and how it touches everything in society.  How the black was assumed to be property without proof.  The differentiation of treatment between white and black and how that still affects American society.  The use of religion and Scripture in unjust institutions.  Smaller themes—just pay for one’s work, the loss of name as dehumanization, just and unjust use of violence—abound.   All of these could be discussed forever.

But what I was constantly wondering was how much the director identified with this story.  Steve McQueen—despite the connection in name with the white American movie star—is a black British artistic director.  I wonder if he picked this story because if he were born at a different time, this might be his story.  It might be him, having woke up with chains, told he was a runaway slave and given a new name, beaten until he accepts his new life.

The fact is, if I were born a different color in a different time, this could be me.  Being articulate, being educated, having a northern accent and even being born free didn’t help Solomon.  In a time of prejudice, it takes very little to be on the other side of the tracks.  One dramatic change, and you are no longer well regarded, you are no longer loved.  You become the outcast, the very bottom rung of society, no matter what you did, no matter who you are.  So much depends on the story society tells about you.

I trembled as I watched this film.  Not just at the atrocities Solomon and his fellow slaves had to suffer.  But at the fact that so few did so little as to change this societal abomination.  That the promoters of this evil used the very same words I do on a daily basis to teach people how to love and care.  I wept at Solomon’s experience.

Just as the credits rolled, my phone rang.  Don’t worry, I had it silenced through the film, but I decided to walk out and take the call.  On a Saturday, I would normally be leading a day shelter and worship service for some fifty homeless people, but once a month I get a day off, which I occasionally use to watch a film I am highly anticipating.  My day shelter leader, who used to be homeless herself, asked me about getting gear for Greg.  The police came and took everything he owned except what was on his back.  We didn’t have a tent, but we made arrangements to get him a tarp, a sleeping bag and a leather coat.

Today, more than ever, anyone could be at the bottom rung of society.  Anyone.  Suddenly, without warning, one could be thrust onto the street and become a criminal, an object of public scorn.  And the only way to get past this gauntlet of shame is to clamber up the myriad of obstacles to become middle class again.  The longer one remains on the street, the deeper the pit of shit one sinks into.

Who will help stop this societal injustice?  Since I see it, whoever else will, I must participate in this evil’s demise. If only because I see it for what it is.

Lincoln: A Review and Political Rant

Steven Spielberg is not only one of the great makers of blockbusters, he is also a great history teacher.

I know, your history teacher was better.  At least more accurate.  Less subjective.

C’mon, who’s kidding who?  History is about story and the best history teachers are storytellers- every one with   Some might help us better remember facts and figures better.  Some might better cause us to remember the flow or themes of history.  But almost no one is a better storyteller than Spielberg.  And what other history teacher has a multi-million dollar budget?

Spielberg has now got a number of historical films under his belt: Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Munich, War Horse and now Lincoln.  While others may have taken place in the past (e.g. 1941, Catch Me If You Can), there is less a sense of communicating anything about history.  There is just a setting that the story takes place.  All these films can best be called historic fiction, although there are parts of all these films that give us a sense of placing us in that historic setting and giving us a greater knowledge of what it meant to live in that time and place.

Like a good history teacher, it is not enough for us to just know the facts of the event, but to give us an interpretation of what the facts mean.  In this way, we not only have a starting point for our own interpretation, but we will remember the facts better than if they are given to us in an Edward Murrow presentation.

As a presentation of history, I think that Lincoln is next to Schindler’s List in its greatness and moral complexity.

 Certainly there are some stunning performances here. Tommy Lee Jones gives one of his best performances here (in my opinion, second only to No Country for Old Men).   He balances the humor and power of the role of the radical Thaddeus Stevens perfectly.   The whole ensemble was fantastic.

But this is the film in which I must declare that I have decided that Daniel Day Lewis is the best actor of our generation.  Yes, I have seen him before and I’ve been impressed, but this performance is stunning.  It isn’t an imitation, but a full embrace of a historic personage to such a degree that I suppose that I will never think about Lincoln without this performance again.   DDL’s Lincoln isn’t the image of Lincoln I had in the past, who I considered brooding unless he was before an audience.   DDL’s Lincoln is an image of perfectly controlled anger.  He is furious at injustice, furious at his wife’s instability, at his son’s insistence to join the army, at his opposition’s unfairness—yet he knows that raging and yelling only increases his impotence.   As a man sold out to create justice, he does only what is necessary to form a better family, a better government, a better nation.

Without spoilers, I just want to say one thing about the three climaxes of the film: the vote, the scene in Thaddeus Steven’s bedroom and the theatre.  All three of these amazing scenes were done without the central character in sight.  This is a brilliant choice to show us the impact of Lincoln’s work, because it is about what he did for others, no matter what the cost for himself.  

Yes, there’s a lot of talking here.  But it’s surrounded by great cinematography and imbued with one of the greatest dramas of American history.   I will never forget it.  5/5

* * *

Meditation on the Politics of Lincoln

This meditation is necessarily full of spoilers of the film.  You are warned.

I haven’t done reading on the historical accuracy of the film Lincoln.  I know that it is based on a work of history, Team of Rivals, but I am not so naïve to think that the film does more than give generalities of the arguments and ideas and people involved. 

Nevertheless, with what reading I have done, I find that the historic attitudes and the means and ways of politics in the film to be accurate, even if many of the specifics aren’t. (Again, I don’t know  how accurate they are, they may very well be.)

Lincoln was an idealist placed in the middle of a political catfight.  But he knew that there is no straight line in politics.  To accomplish his goals he needed to hide them.  To create justice, he had to remain “neutral” between injustice and justice. 

Personally, I am much more attuned to Thaddeus Stevens, both in attitude and in approach.  He is portrayed as a simple, moral man, angry and ideological, but he could destroy the whole process by his refusal to compromise.  He stands with justice without compromise, without retreat and hopes that his constant harping on the truth might bring change. 

Democracy must put aside such passion.  Democracy demands that all sides make compromise with each other for the greater good.  Lincoln understood this, and lived to push for justice in the midst of this system.  A political saint who tells stories, worked for positive compromise, started a war for the greater good.  A politician of the best kind—full of the lies and the egomania that all the best politicians have. Yet would slavery have been abolished without this man?  He was a unique man, a “pure” man—but why should a nation be dependent on the unique powerful individual to create morality?  Without the unique moral individual who is willing to take the compromise, democracy cannot work.

What kind of a system that demands moral compromises, even outright lies, in order to accomplish the moral good?  I cannot accomplish a politics that requires me to surrender what I know to be good for that which is significantly less than good.  I cannot abide a government that insists on liars in order to achieve truth.  Nor can I believe in a system that demands the innocent be unwillingly sacrificed for the sake of peace and unity.

In the end, the amendment was passed because of the compromise of good people and the corruption of weak people.  

And Lincoln, in the end, says that democracy requires people to stick with it. The fact is, with the rare exception, democracy is fighting against-- and just as often fighting for-- a rising tide of injustice.   For every moral position, two immoral positions arise.  For every "pure" man, fifty arise to take power.  Yes, the pure politicians (as few of these that there are) can make some progress, but the impure at the same time provide distractions and drawbacks, and even more. If this is democracy, give me anarchy, or monarchy.

F is for both Fact and False

A question was posed on the Filmspotting Forum recently about movies that claim some level of truth.  What if they don't give all the truth?  What if they change significant aspects of the story, or the history?


My friend Jessica/Lobby gave this example: In the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a journalist and editor who lost complete use of his body.  The film shows how his ex-wife stayed with him through thick and thin, but his girlfriend didn't show up.  However, eyewitnesses say that the truth is just the opposite-- it was the girlfriend who was by his side and the ex-wife who wasn't to be seen.  Why the change?  The ex-wife was co-producer of the film. 


Should the director or scriptwriter take some responsibility that the facts be presented correctly?  What about a portrayal that puts a real person-- perhaps a living person-- in a bad (or good) light that isn't accurate?  Should there be some baseline of truth that is required should a film claim to be based on "real events"?

In my opinion, all film is fiction.  So is almost all literature, except for the most researched, documented material.  In every film there is a kind of truth that they are trying to reach for and a kind of fiction that supports their version of the truth.   If a film states "based on real events", this only means to me that something vaguely like what occurred in the film happened.  If the real events were important to me, I'd read a journalistic, documented report of such events.


Documentaries, while using actual footage, is at best interpreted fact.  At worst, it is created from whole cloth.  This does not hinder my enjoyment of said film because I believe that all film is fiction.
Since Orson Welles' tour de force F is for Fake, many documentaries have abandoned all pretense of being journalistic or objective.  This last year we have the film Exit Through the Gift Shop, which narratively, purposefully, blurs the line between reality and fiction.  Michael Moore has facts he believes are true and presents them in an entertaining fashion, but it's only one side of the facts.  Recent documentaries such as My Kid Could Paint That and Dear Zachary allow the filmmaker to insert himself into the narrative, throwing objectivity out the window.  24 City, a Chinese documentary, uses actors to re-create interviews.  The line between truth and storytelling and just plain old fiction is often blurred without distinction.  Mind you, I love these films.  And part of what I love is the question of truth the filmmaker puts in your mind.     


I wish that the term "documentary" didn't mean, in many people's estimation, a factual account.  I wish that when anyone reads the phrase "based on real events" that they would emphasize the word "based", and recognize that there is a lot in the film that isn't fact in any way.  But people want to think that reality happens in this entertaining fashion.  So it is.

What is a director's responsibility?  Not much more than what they have done already.  I wish that every documentarian would say, "This film is more about me than my subject".  I wish that every filmmaker who creates a movie about real events would admit that they made up a lot or at least changed a lot.  But that's kind of like asking a magician to tell how they did their trick (as The Prestige would say).  Frankly, it ruins the trick for the audience.  It's like a child saying, "Let's pretend" in a Let's Pretend game.  To acknowledge the curtain is to acknowledge that you are being tricked and that ruins the real fiction: the one where the audience thinks they are being given facts instead of opinion.

So what about the girl that was falsely portrayed in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? 


I would hope that she and her friends would know the truth.  The fact is, if the wife hadn't been a co-producer, the film possibly wouldn't have been made at all, and most of us wouldn't have known the amazing story, or seen the remarkable film.  I would wish that most people would understand that such a movie is a story and only part of the narrative is true.  Some won't.  But those of us that do will be talking about the "wife" and the "girlfriend" as portrayed in the movie, not in real life.  


As for anyone who purposefully tells a lie in order to promote themselves... I have no sympathy for them and believe that justice will be given them-- but almost certainly not in film.  Nor in the courts.