AFI Fest Review: Selma

We tend to look at history in broad swathes.  History is a series of eras, of major, sweeping changes and shifts.  Decades are reduced to chapters in textbooks, and lives are the dashes between sets of numbers.  History is a dead thing on the page, as far removed from us as the most bizarre science-fiction.  We hear the stories of our past as though they are fairy tales, morality lessons that are too easily ignored in the heat of our present.  Films that tackle our history seek to right these faults in our collective human character.  Films like Ava DuVernay's Selma manage that impressive task.

Selma is a major movie.  It's about a volatile time in American history.  The country is at war with Vietnam, and at war with itself, as Constitutionally provisioned voting rights for African-Americans are routinely denied.  A set of laws all but prevent unregistered blacks access to the polls.  Perfectly filled-out paperwork is summarily denied, protecting the country's white power structure.  On the front lines of the Civil Rights battle, two men - Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch) - seek change, employing their own methods of peaceful protest and violent action, respectively.

DuVernay is known for her intimate dramas, and that knack serves her well on this much larger canvas.  She recognizes that history is woven of intimate momentts, individual action, and personal sacrifice.  Selma has a huge cast of characters, and DuVernay finds a way to use each member of her impressive ensemble well.  There are epic scenes, such as the confrontation on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, which unfolds with all the violence and despair of a battle scene in a fantasy movie.  But such scenes are powerful not only because of the inherent shock of the images, or of the historical import they convey, but because DuVernay takes the time to identify the faces in the crowd.  These are people we are introduced to and come to love, moments of their stories threading into the larger tepestry of the fight for voting rights.

While black blood is spilled on the streets, President Lyndon B. Johnson (a venomous Tom Wilkinson) attempts to control the situation from the comfort of the Oval Office.  King tells the President again and again that all the action, and the reactionary violence, could stop if he would just pick up his pen.  It's the film's greatest display of inequality: the respective leaders' means of taking action, and willingness to do so.

As King, David Oyelowo is transformed.  Rather than doing a straight impersonation, Oyelowo finds his own voice as the lauded leader.  And what a voice.  Oyelowo's king is all the more heroic because of his imperfection, and his weariness.  The film doesn't ignore King's infidelity, or paint him as a perfect man.  While in jail, he wonders how he can continue, only to be encouraged to continue on by one of his fellows.  He is tired, but he is driven onward by his dedication to his cause and the support of his community.  Master cinematographer Bradford Young frames King at the pulpit so that the pipe organs form a peacock tail behind him, a visual marriage of King's steadfast faith and booming oratorial power; Oyelowo's performance deserves such a piercing image.

The rest of DuVernay's cast is stunning.  Oprah Winfrey has a small role as an elderly woman seeking the right to vote, but her first scene really sets the stage for the film's major narrative thrust, and she is a visual touchstone throughout.  Tim Roth is truly despicable as Alabama Governor George Wallace, who only has a fraction of his consituents' good at heart.  Carmen Ejogo is a quiet revelation as the King's longsuffering wife, Coretta.  She, too, finds the weariness in the character, but also the strength to sacrifice familial stability for a greater cause.  Her scenes are some of the film's most powerful, and she finds that power without ever raising her voice.

Bradford Young again proves himself one of the best cinematographers in the business, a master of light and framing, from the buttery yellow streaming in through a church window to the hazy chaos of the bridge.  Editor Spencer Averick cuts the film to punctuate King's speeches, build suspense, and bask in the glory of progress.  The script from Paul Webb is full of grand speeches and nuanced political banter; it's reminiscent of Tony Kushner's Lincoln script.

As a slice of history brought to life, Selma is a tremendous achievement, and proof that DuVernay is one of the great directors working today.  As a reflection of our current national situation, it becomes a disturbing piece of evidence that history does, indeed, repeat itself.  African-Americans are still often denied the right to vote through institutional impositions, and racial tension runs high: the images of Selma are not far removed from those we recently saw from Ferguson.  Martin Luther King Jr. and the other heroes of the Civil Rights movement made incredible progress, but there is still work to be done, and Selma is a powerful reminder of that.