What begins as a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s campaign to secure equal voting rights (via an epic march in Selma Alabama in 1965) turns into a masterpiece film, and number three on this year’s Screen Queen’s top ten list.
When Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) tries to register to vote there’s a moment in her performance that takes us back to The Color Purple and slavery. President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) refuses to pass the bill, and suddenly we’re thrust back into the ignorance of the 60s where prejudice and stupidity prevailed especially with the still-fighting-the-civil-war-mentality of the south.
Enter MLK (David Oyelowo) a fierce crusader with energized and eloquent dialogue, though President Johnson hopes he’s not “one of those militant Malcolm X types.” MLK wants the American negro citizen to have the right to vote, but he’ll have to go to hell and back (and lose alot of innocent lives along the way) to get the bill passed. Afterall, most of the south was still segregated. And this is ironic to watch as the men banter under a portrait of Thomas Jefferson in the White House. J Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) calls MLK a degenerate, but when MLK reminds the White House that segregation is illegal, violence and demonstrations ensue. (This is spooky to see given the current climate of our own country in black/white police brutality some fifty years later.)
Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo) says she “can’t see life because of the fog” of hatred running through their lives as innocent people are assaulted with tear gas, batons and whips. Ejogo plays a solemn, stoic, wife, while Martin Sheen portrays Judge Frank Minis Johnson and Tim Roth portrays George Wallace.
Selma might lead a crusade to racial injustice, with 1/3 whites present in the march – but it’s a film of integrity and humility, protest and progress. ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛