Politics get personal in Ava DuVernay’s powerful ‘Selma’
It’s been 50 years since the landmark Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. It may not sound like an exciting piece of legislation, but it made a world of difference to millions of black Americans, mostly in the south, who had been effectively disenfranchised for generations, unable to have a voice in their own government.
Now, the struggle to make the VRA a reality is dramatized in Selma, an extraordinarily powerful and accomplished feature from director Ava DuVernay. Scripted by Paul Webb, the story chronicles a few months early in 1965 when Dr. Martin Luther King organized a courageous series of protest marches from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery, to publicize the suppression of black voting rights to the White House—and the world. In our own particular historical moment, when “Black Lives Matter” has become a rallying cry in our streets, and the VRA has been shamefully gutted by the current Supreme Court, this movie could not be more timely.
At the center of DuVernay’s film is Dr. King, played with stoic poise and uncompromising determination by Anglo-African actor David Oyelowo. A recent Nobel Peace Prize honoree, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and champion of nonviolent protest, King lives by the creed, “Demonstrate. Negotiate. Resist.” When his negotiations with President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson)—who is sympathetic, but worried about alienating political allies in the south—do not result in immediate voting reform legislation, King and other SCLC leaders head to Selma.
Refusing to wait until it’s politically convenient for Johnson to support voting rights, King hopes a massive demonstration will galvanize public support to his cause. Which it does—but at a dreadful cost. The riot police and mounted state troopers wielding barbed billy clubs, and armed with tear gas and bullwhips, assembled by Alabama Governor George Wallace (played as a silky, snarling martinet by Tim Roth) to stop the march, are not on board with the nonviolence thing. The “Bloody Sunday” melee that concludes the first march is captured live on TV and broadcast around the world—earning massive global support for the marchers and forcing Johnson to act.
Director DuVernay wisely dramatizes the material by sticking to personal stories. We see how King’s fierce moral principles put a strain on his marriage to Coretta (Carmel Ejogo); it’s bad enough he continues to put himself in harm’s way, but she’s the one who has to field obscene phone calls and threats to their children at home. Particularly after we see a toad-like J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) pressure Johnson to allow him to try his “dismantle the family” tactic to neutralize King.
Personalized, too, are defining moments in the civil rights movement that most of us remember (if we remember them at all) only as newspaper headlines. DuVernay’s handling of the bomb blast that kills four little girls in an Alabama church, while not graphic, is utterly devastating in its sudden, shocking finality. As the peaceful marchers run into police opposition, historical statistics become faces and lives we care about—like Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield) escorting his 84-year-old grandfather and mother to the marches. Or Roy Reed (John Lavelle), a white minister from Boston whose conscience won’t allow him to sit on the sidelines.
Debates about arcane legal procedures and the legislative details that add up to political change would make viewers’ eyes glaze over. But DuVernay is smart enough to personalize these issues as well, in ways that allow the audience to fully grasp their impact on ordinary lives. It’s perfectly legal for black Americans to vote, but county registrars are free to improvise arbitrary qualification tests on the spot. When determined Annie Lee Cooper (a cameo by co-producer Oprah Winfrey) attempts to register yet again, she can recite the Preamble to the Constitution, and knows the correct number of county judges in the state of Alabama, but she falters when she’s asked to name them all.
It’s appalling how far our current lawmakers have backslid on the VRA, after seeing how much these people sacrificed to make it a reality. In Selma, DuVernay reminds us that all politics are personal.
NOTE: The NAACP of Santa Cruz County and the Resource Center for Nonviolence are hosting a series of events this week celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visit rcnv.org or call 423-1626 for details.
SELMA ***1/2 (out of four)
With David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, and Tom Wilkinson. Written by Paul Webb. Directed by Ava DuVernay. A Paramount release. Rated PG-13. 123 minutes. PHOTO: David Oyelowo plays Dr. Martin Luther King in the politically charged ‘Selma.’
