A film that every American needs to see (like, right now)

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2015)

There is an old saying that art - even the glossy, fanciful stuff that you see written about in the all the fancy magazines and news articles - does have some bottom-line commercial concerns, as well as providing a form of entertainment.
There is also something to be said about motion pictures regarding real-life historical events. While they are made to bring attention to, or bring to life either long-forgotten or recent events in history, they are, at base level, concerned primarily with providing a form of entertainment, and will sometimes fudge the real-life facts for the sake of providing said entertainment.
Any film based on true-life events will face this problem. I would guess that for anyone wanting 100% facts, then they should go watch a documentary or go read a book.
I just got done watching Ava DuVernay's 2014 Oscar-Winner "Selma," about the marches and demonstrations in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, that led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, which extended voting rights to all people of color. The timing of the release of "Selma" could not have been more perfect, in my eyes.
I first heard about "Selma" late last year, probably around this time, actually. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court unceremoniously struck down a crucial portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - specifically Section 4(b), which was for the so-called "coverage formula" for jurisdictions, mostly in the South, with proved, documented histories of egregious voting discriminations, including, regretfully, my home state of Virginia - a moment in recent history that shamefully received very little coverage in the news media of the time and to this day almost three years later still infuriates me.
(It both saddens and frustrates me to think about how with the stroke of a pen, how so much has been lost in the 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law.)
And then, the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" was just this past March (March 7), an event which also did not receive a whole lot of coverage in the media, but I do remember seeing a few items on the news and on Facebook (of all places) of people, many of whom were there in 1965, walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge - just as they had done 50 years earlier.
And "Selma" was released during the time between the two momentous occasions.
These events in recent history - and the current racial unrest and unease in this country - only serve to increase the demand that all Americans see "Selma." I had been wanting to see this movie for a long time, but I only recently gave it a viewing today. I had heard long before I saw "Selma" that DuVernay's film was not entirely true to historical events, in particular the relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo, who received a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, but was shunned by the Oscars) and then-United States President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson). I know from my understanding of history that President Johnson was actually the greatest political ally of the Civil Rights Movement, but was still under enormous pressure to go through with his own "Great Society" programs and the escalating U.S. military conflict in Vietnam. In other words, they both wanted the same thing - the dismantling of Jim Crow - but just had different responsibilities and priorities.
In fact, according to one analysis of the picture and this slight by Slate earlier this year, "...By hardening Johnson - and making him a larger roadblock than he was - DuVernay emphasizes the grass roots of the movement and the particular struggles of King and his allies. In the long argument of who matters most - activists or politicians - DuVernay falls on the side of the former; showing how citizens can expand the realm of the possible and give politicians the push - and the room - they need to act."
In other words, the film is mostly about the activists who drove the federal government into drafting and eventually passing the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law - and it is largely told from their perspective. In fact, the two biggest stumbling blocks encountered by both the activists, led by King, and the federal government, led by Johnson, are FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker), and Alabama Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth); in real life, it was actually U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy who authorized the FBI wiretaps and harassment of Dr. King and other Civil Rights Movement leaders in an attempt to discredit his leadership and link him to the Communist Party (the film depicts Johnson authorizing this, not Kennedy), and George Wallace often used the police to violently suppress peaceful demonstrations in his state, like on "Bloody Sunday."
Ava DuVernay's film isn't perfect; it's a little too wishy-washy in its liberal depiction of an extremely violent time in American history. But still, after seeing this movie finally (and taking into consideration recent historical events), I have now confirmed my feeling that "Selma" is the film that should have won Best Picture at the Oscars earlier this year, but was shamefully overlooked by the Academy. That it only received one Oscar win (for "Glory" by Common and John Legend), which I suspect was done to placate certain members of the audience, is a real disservice to one of the greatest moments in American history that took place just 50 years ago.
10/10