Selma

The first great decision the filmmakers of Selma made was not to make a Martin Luther King Jr. biopic. It’s not that biopics can’t be done well, it’s that there just so often unsatisfying at best (see: this year’s charming but ultimately unsatisfying “Theory of Everything” as reference). Selma is a very contained story – one that takes place in just a few months of screen time. That’s a drop in the bucket, even considering Dr. King’s sadly abbreviated life, but by focusing with greater detail on this particular action he was involved in, more understanding, resonance and meaning are reached. In simpler terms, this is a very, very good film.

David Oyelowo plays Dr. King alarmingly well. He opens the pic by staring the audience straight in the eye as he practices his Nobel Peace Prize speech. He is exhausted, dressed in uncomfortably formal clothes and expresses his desire to go home with his wife, Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) and live a simple preacher’s life. As an audience in the know, we can only sigh and shake our heads at the cross that lies before him which he will be called to pick up. Paul Webb’s script and Director Ava DuVernay’s direction deserve large kudos for the courage to show Dr. King as a flawed individual and still a great man at once. This humanity, rather than sainthood, grows his legend in terms of accessibility – a massive departure from what King’s estate allowed previously and a gift to all of us.

The shocking murder of four black girls in a Birmingham, AL church lets us know Dr.  King will not get his much-desired rest; there is work to be done. Instead he picks a fight with the newly inaugurated President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson). The power play between these two men is central to the rest of the film. What they argue about is less important than the way they argue and how, ultimately, Dr. King is able to get the most powerful man in the world to bend to his way of thinking.

Selma deserves to be nominated by the Academy as one of the year’s best, especially with up to 10 slots to offer. It is a well-timed release, particularly in the context of recent events in Missouri and New York. Though those events and the ones depicted in Selma are not the same, there are power plays between minorities and authority in both narratives and, therefore, the parallels are worthy of discussion.

The performances, sets, art design and costumes were all stellar. At the same time, Selma as a whole, pales in comparison as a piece of cinematic art to Whiplash, Budapest Hotel and Birdman. One could reasonably argue the story lines of the latter films mentioned here do not have nearly the weight or social importance of Selma. The retort is a question: should a film benefit in the discussion of its worthiness as the Best Picture of a given year because of its social relevance, particularly when that relevance is heightened due to circumstances beyond the film’s control?    

The nitpicks I have with Selma, artistically, have to do partially with the occasional lapses into theatricality when I felt devoid of the reality that had been set up on screen and was, instead, watching the film as if it were on stage. That’s not about the actors, that is about how the DuVernay chose to stage some of her sets. The camera work is also very strange in a number of places with characters composed on the edges of frames, leaving massive negative space that doesn’t seem to add any value. That doesn’t mean the camera work is all bad – quite the opposite. It’s beautiful and gentle in many places, allowing the audience an almost documentary-like feel or level of access that works quite well with the subject matter. However the editing, too, is jumpy at times, which may have been, at least in part, due to the occasional odd composition of frames.

All of these things are small in comparison to the beauty, emotion and importance the film brings forward, especially in light of the current social context. Martin Luther King Jr. remains a towering figure over our society nearly 50 years after he was assassinated. Selma does an excellent job of hinting at the larger story and meaning of the man by focusing intently on a smaller set of actions he was involved in.

Resonance Rating: 4.5 out of 5