"Selma" :- an outsider's view.

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2015)

As an Englishman my view of the events portrayed in "Selma" is conditioned by contemporary reports shown on the BBC and cinema newsreels. We saw the de - segregation of schools in The South,George Wallace,Little Rock,Rosa Parks and the Freedom Marchers at one remove. There was a relatively small number of black people living here in the 1950s and they had the vote were educated and neither hated nor feared.They had come to this country voluntarily,not brought in chains. We felt rather smug about that. When Kennedy became President I rather naively thought one of his first priorities would be to address such inequalities but it was not to be so and he was soon engaged in a p*ss*ng contest with Kruschev that took our eyes of the ball.It took his much - maligned successor LBJ to confront the problems,however reluctantly.He may have been a potty - mouthed,bigoted corrupt oilman but he wasn't a fool. And he did more for race equality in the U.S.than any of his predecessors and most of his successors. As I say,that's an outsider's view. And largely one promulgated by "Selma",a well - made,well - acted story of Dr.Martin Luther King's battles against ignorance and hatred,organised opposition and state - controlled violence. It may be difficult for younger viewers to credit the implacable hatred shown by the Authorities towards what they saw as a challenge to the status quo(and they were right,for that is exactly what the protests were all about). Emotions were raw on both sides. The film pulls few punches and is obviously a deeply - felt work that will inform generations to come of the hard - won rights that can too easily be taken for granted in times of relative tranquility but have recently been brought into sharper focus. It is of course a creative piece and the child of the director but has more than enough hard truths that she has refused to smooth out. Not an easy view then,but an essential one.