Selma

SELMA

Director : Ava DuVernay

Year : 2015

Genre : Biographical Drama

Rating : ****

 

Despite rave reviews from both critics and audiences alike, Ava DuVernay's biographical drama 'Selma' has been all but snubbed by the Academy voters - bar a pathetically apologetic Best Picture nomination  and a pointless Best Original Song nod. The film, which chronicles a three month period in 1965 in which Dr. Martin Luther King led a defiant march in the town of Selma, Alabama in protest of the States voting laws marks yet another motion picture in which America acknowledges it's racial history. However, unlike the similarly themed films 'The Help', 'Lincoln' and '12 Years A Slave' before it, 'Selma' has all but been ignored by it's distributors while failing to make much of a splash across the worldwide box office due to an overwhelming lack of publicity. 

Why is this? If anything, 'Selma' should have more social resonance that any of the other racially themed movies released this decade. My guess is that while Dr. Kings earth-shattering speeches still have as much impact as they did half of a century ago, Americans still cannot bear to believe that such hatred and anger existed in their beloved country such a short time ago. This is completely understandable but if the States are going to put their past behind them, they must face up to the demons of their history. 'Selma' puts those demons on the screen in all of their horrid reality and the end result is a deeply moving, wonderfully told and beautifully acted reconstruction of one of the most definitive moments of a great mans all too brief life.

 

From it's genesis, 'Selma' was bound to run into trouble. In 2009, Dr. Kings estate sold Dreamworks Pictures and Warner Bros. the rights to his historical speeches for a tentatively Spielberg produced biopic. This meant that anyone attempting to make a film about the civil rights leader would have to write fictional dialogue to replace the actual words used by King on his many revolutionary rallies. However despite this overwhelming drawback, screenwriter Paul Webb masterfully avoids the potential pitfalls of creating pantomimic imitation and instead creates stirring and uplifting dialogue that perfectly emulates the idiosyncratic cadences, vocal internation and unmistakable speaking style used by King himself - dialogue that becomes so much stronger when placed in the hands, or mouth, of actor David Oyelowo.

The fact that Oyelowo has been completely ignored by the Academy in the best actor category is not only a travesty for Oyelowo but a travesty for the Oscar committee in its entirety. In fact, not one African American has been voted for in the best actor/actress, director, supporting actor/actress or original/adapted screenplay categories. Now, I'm not saying that the Academy voters are in any way prejudiced against black filmmakers but this startling scenario does seem to point to a worrying trend in modern cinema. Oyelowo himself has stated on more than one occasion that work for black actors has become harder and harder to find in the UK film industry. This is why you are more likely to find actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Idris Elba and Adrian Lester in American racially-themed historical dramas rather than gritty, urban modern day English dramas. I must say it's incredibly sad that in this day and age I can still write that.

However despite this blatantly unfair and completely shocking revelation, we must be grateful for David Oyelowos electrifying portrayal of Luther King. It is a performance that perfectly balances the fabled vision we hold in our combined consciousness of the strong, emboldened orator who defiantly proclaimed peace and equality with the stark realism of a man who at times felt threatened, felt scared and above all, was a vulnerable and imperfect human being. Rather than being a rose-tinted, faultless representation, 'Selma' actually gives us a much more believable Dr. King than anything we have seen d before which, in turn, makes Oyelowos portrayal so much more powerful and ultimately tragic. 

The rest of the cast includes other wonderful British actors such as relative newcomer Carmen Ajogo as Kings supportive but increasingly desperate and fragile wife, the always brilliant Tom Wilkinson as an exasperated Lyndon B. Johnson who bears the brunt of Kings impassioned protests and a sadly underused Tim Roth shines as the slimy, weasel-like racist Alabaman governor George Wallace whose misguided prejudice is the catalyst for most of the violence depicted in the movie. Not to mention a simply brilliant Oprah Winfrey (who also acts as co-producer of 'Selma') who is magnificent as the headstrong and resilient Annie Lee Cooper whose all too few moments on screen provide the film with some of it's most touching and haunting moments. All of the actors in 'Selma' do a marvelous job of bringing a humanity and realism to their performances but there is no doubt that it is David Oyelowo who holds the whole thing together.

While it is mostly a picture about the verbal battle between president and humanitarian, 'Selma' also contains some harrowing and deeply upsetting scenes depicting horrific racial prejudice and violence. Women are beaten without malice aforethought, innocent men are shot in ice cold blood and (in one of the most thrilling and tense scenes) an entire group of black activists are literally chased off a bridge by a whole army of baton-armed police officers and sheriffs. These individual moments may not be as brutally graphic and as intense as the comparable '12 Years A Slave' but director Ava DuVernay still manages through the use of brilliant camera work and cinematography (courtesy of the brilliant Bradford Young) to create an incredibly palpable but tastefully suitable atmosphere of dread and fear - an atmosphere that doesn't even let up as the movies triumphant and epochal ending finally arrives.

Pitch perfect performances, wonderful direction and a remarkable script make 'Selma' one of the most vital viewing experiences of this years award season. Its not completely without it's drawbacks however.  There are times that the movie feels a bit predictable and anyone who watches a large amount of biographical dramas will recognise some certain narrative conventions and tropes as the movie approaches its final act while DuVernays relatively simply directorial style, while proficient, can sometimes can come across more televisual than cinematic. But much like 'The Theory Of Everything', 'Selma' tells a story that doesn't need auteurist flair to make it extraordinary. The words spoken on screen say so much more than flashy zooms, spangly editing techniques or needless camera pans could ever do. Don't ignore it like the Oscars have. See the picture and rejoice in a performance that deserves so much more recognition than it has received.