Something is Missing, Flat

Rating: 4/10 (19 January 2015)

Something, hard to define, is missing in this important film. This film takes the viewer on a journey to Selma Alabama at the crucial time of the Civil Rights movement that took place during the life of Martin Luther King. It covers the important facts, describing clearly the sad situation that people of color faced in trying to register to vote in the segregated south. Even today, the efforts by white-dominated election boards make it more and more difficult for people of color to register and make their votes in the old south. The actor playing Dr. King, in my view, is one of the serious problems this film has. He seems to do a good job, but something serious is missing. The fact that he is not an American is part of this problem. There is something artificial about his acting. It is technically sound, yet lacks some deeper presentation of the driven, inspiring personality that defined Dr. King. Perhaps the problem is in the context. We don't really see any sense of the history that lead to this confrontation. The beat down on the bridge is, in my view, poorly filmed and does very little to capture the full outrage, violence and terror of that event. Certainly this is a difficult scene to set up and record, but Hollywood is very well-equipped to do things like this. A lot has been made of the so-called snubbing of Oprah in this film. She has a small part in the beginning of the film, a scene that could have been played by anyone. The scene where she tries to register to vote, while being questioned and intimidated by a series of crazy questions from the voter registrar is very helpful in telling us what this film is about. There is nothing exceptional about her small part, so I see no cause at all for her to imagine that for such a small part she should be nominated for an Academy Award. The very idea seems really childish. A lot of facts were left out, or glossed over; so an enormous opportunity seems to have been lost. Selma is a good film about the civil rights movement, but not a great film. It is flat, the lead actors are not very interesting and the script, in particular, seems half- finished. It comes across as a rough draft of an idea for a film rather than a finished product. I was very disappointed in this film. In particular I did not like the actors playing Doctor King or President Johnson. The photography, the camera work, as well was not very good...flat and dry. Perhaps we all have inflated expectations. This is such an important and dramatic story; yet it was created and presented in a very un-inspired form with to many missing parts. The part I absolutely did not like at all in any way is the "song" that closes the film. The semi-rap composition was very disrespectful and tried much to hard to be "relevant". And the fact that it is one of the few points on which it was nominated by the Academy, as "best song" is just sad.