Movie Review: "The Post"

"The Post": B.  Katharine Graham found herself in a pickle in 1971.  As owner-publisher of the Washington Post, she was faced with the choice of allowing her newspaper to publish top secret documents known as the Pentagon Papers, or killing the story against the wishes of her editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, other Post veteran newsmen who had devoted immeasurable time working on the story, and her own attorneys.  At first blush this was a basic First Amendment/freedom of the press legal issue, but there was much more riding on Graham's choice behind the scenes.

Your enjoyment of The Post will be enhanced if you go into the theater knowing at least a little bit of the background of the Pentagon Papers.  True, director Steven Spielberg spends a portion of the first act setting the stage, but you nevertheless may want to do your own preliminary research.  Alternatively, you might read the remainder of this paragraph.  The Pentagon Papers were the creation of military advisor Daniel Ellsberg, who embedded with the US front line infantry in war-ravaged South Viet Nam in 1966.  His assessment of the war and the U.S. prospects for victory, as he related directly to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on their return flight to the States, was abominably dismal.  The U.S. was, at best, in a stalemate position fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.  In fact, it would not be unfair to opine that America was actually losing the war, with little hope for ultimate victory.  But within minutes of the plane's landing, McNamara deceitfully informed the press that the U.S. was winning the war.  This falsehood was additionally perpetrated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, neither of whom wanted to leave as their legacy being the first U.S. president to preside over a lost war.  In 1971, when Ellsberg could no longer remain silent as the deceit emanating from the White House continued year after year, he secretly photocopied reams of military analyses and strategies concerning Southeast Asia from the offices of his employer, Rand Company (a government contractor), and bestowed them upon the New York Times.

The Times planned to run a huge, multi-installment expose of the executive branch's lies and deceit concerning the war, based on the classified documents furnished to them by Ellsberg.  But after only three installments had been published, U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell successfully persuaded a federal court to grant an injunction prohibiting the Times from doing so.  This is where the Post comes in, eventually leading to Decision Time for Graham.

Shortly after the injunction against the Times was issued, the Washington Post, via the connection of assistant editor Ben Bagdikian with Ellsberg, got its hands on the same documents.  The film The Post is mostly about how that newspaper, with Graham at the helm, handled that once-in-a-blue-moon treasure trove of information.  

The inestimable Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the cinema, plays Graham.  Although Graham was the titular head of the paper, she had at least two or three hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was her being a woman in an industry historically dominated by men.  There are several instances where the male honchos seem to consult and debate with each other as if Graham was not even in the room, notwithstanding her position. Everyone knew Graham ascended to her throne because of her husband's suicide.  Before he died, he hand-picked Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to run the company as editor-in-chief.  Bradley was the Post's prime minister to Graham's queen.

Another hurdle, like the proverbial Sword Of Damocles, was the IPO which the paper was counting on to capitalize its balance sheet.  [An IPO, aka initial public offering, is the process by which a private company makes its shares available to the public, including mega-buck institutional investors.]  The Post suffered from a kind of inferiority complex.  They saw themselves as a regional, albeit very good regional, paper, but playing second fiddle to the Times, a powerhouse national, if not international, news source.  Graham and company aspired to close the gap with the Times, and going public would give them financial wherewithal to make that dream a reality. The last thing the Post needed at a time when it was trying to attract millions of investment dollars was to have its senior officers indicted on charges ranging from disobeying a federal injunction to treason.

One of Graham's most interesting dilemmas was how to separate her close friendship with McNamara from her obligation to serve her company and its readers.  Other than a string of U.S. presidents dating back to Kennedy (if not Truman), no one was hit harder by the information brought to light in the Pentagon Papers than McNamara.  One of the best scenes occurs when Bradlee, who was Graham's direct report, accuses her of fence-sitting out of her concern for McNamara.  Graham then accuses Bradlee of going soft on some of his buddies, such as President Kennedy.  It does make one wonder how much personal relationships of news source executives get in the way of mission performance.

I found it interesting that Streep has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but the Academy chose not to nominate Hanks for Best Actor.  In the latter case, it probably makes little difference other than the personal recognition garnered by a nomination, as that category is considered a two horse race between Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour, reviewed here December 30, 2017; A-) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread).  As for Streep, I found her a little guilty of over-acting -- is it sacrilegious for a laymen such as I to say so?  Was Katharine Graham really that fidgety and lacking in self-confidence?  The women I have known in powerful corporate positions were anything but.  Still, if Meryl's research found Graham to be outwardly indecisive, almost to the point of nervous twitchiness, then I guess that's how Streep felt compelled to portray her. 

As I wrote in my December 15, 2015 review of Spotlight (B+), I have a weakness for movies which offer us a glimpse of behind-the-scenes action in a newspaper office.  While The Post is an entertaining movie, I cannot grant it a grade as high as Spotlight, which I feel is a superior film.  The scenes concentrating on the paper's legal issues, especially those scenes with a room full of in-house lawyers and outside counsel, were the most compelling part of the movie, more so than those showing how a newspaper goes about its business.  The Post is more on a par with 1976's All The President's Men, a fine film to which I gave a pre-blog B.  I sincerely hope my valuation does not send Mr. Spielberg's career southbound. 

Movie Review: "Dunkirk"

"Dunkirk": C.  Despite the use of hundreds of extras to populate several scenes, Christopher Nolan, writer-director of the war movie Dunkirk, has taken a minimalist approach to telling the story of the 1940 rescue of British troops from the north coast beaches of France.  There is hardly any introduction to the setting, thus leaving it up to the viewer to figure out for herself how the infantrymen managed to find themselves not only stranded but fearful for their lives as they await evacuation before the Germans annihilate them.  Nolan's strategy might have worked better if the audience was limited to history majors and World War II buffs, but for the rest of us it was not user-friendly.

Exacerbating the problem is that the dialogue is, naturally, spoken with a British accent which is often hard to decipher.  Many of the young men facially resemble each other, especially with their helmets pulled low just above their soot-stained cheeks.  On second thought, maybe it's not so important that the audience is able to distinguish the characters because their is no character development to speak of; except for a handful of officers, the men are fungible.  That point is driven home in the closing credits, where many of the soldiers are not even given the honor of having a name.  Instead we see characters listed as "second gunnery mate," "third rifleman" and the like.

Another related topic given short shrift is the rationale for the Germans basically ignoring their cornered enemy, the Allies.  Only a couple of Luftwaffe planes appear sporadically to strafe the human sitting ducks below.  By the same token, only a pair of Spitfires are on hand to help out their British brethren.  I found the midair dogfights to be the most entertaining facet of a film which otherwise drags.   We learn in the second half of the movie that the English brain trust, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, came to the conclusion that only a single destroyer could be spared, from other parts of the war effort, to sail across the Channel to rescue the semi-abandoned troops.  Still, that does not explain why the Germans were practically no-shows.

Because of Churchill's questionable decision regarding use of military assets, it was left up to civilian mariners to tackle the hazardous rescue mission in their own vessels.  Another odd choice by Nolan is to show only one such boat owner, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance, who won an Academy Award for his work in 2015's Bridge Of Spies), taking on the perilous challenge.  We wonder, "Is Mr. Dawson the only boat-owning English civilian who was up to the task?"  The answer is not disclosed until near the end.

The story rotates, at times almost in staccato fashion, among the land, the air and the sea.  Some critics might find that approach creative.  I found it to be annoying and artificial, rendering the film choppy and disjointed.

Finally, a couple of notes about two other actors appearing in the movie.  Kenneth Branagh is a heralded and highly decorated Irish actor known mostly for his portrayal of many of Shakespeare's leading men.  He is wasted in Dunkirk as Commander Bolton, the pier master during the evacuation.  Bolton's main (and apparently only) duty is to stare out to sea, as if in a hypnotic trance, searching for any rescue ship that may appear on the horizon.  Sometimes, for variety, he glances up at the sky.  Those vacant, distant glares cause me to nominate Branagh's performance for the Henry Fonda Bad Acting Award.

I knew Harry Styles was cast in this film, and as someone familiar with the pop boy band One Direction, I predicted that I'd easily be able to identify him in Dunkirk.  Wrong!  I had to search the cast list to find out which of the several distraught yet brave young soldiers was he.  Answer: Alex.  Maybe if I were a thirteen year old girl it would not have been a problem.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXII

Everyone currently over the age of sixty-three surely recalls exactly where she was when hearing the news of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.  The president was shot in a Dallas motorcade at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963.  I was a junior in my fifth period chemistry class at Assumption High School in Davenport when we received the initial announcement.  I'm embarrassed to admit that my first reaction was to think of some snide remark about Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, presumed by most to be the likely Republican to oppose JFK in the following year's presidential election.  In retrospect, I've cut myself some (undeserved?) slack due to my youth, and also because the thought of political assassination was a foreign concept to most of us.  Sure, we knew all about what happened to Lincoln at Ford's Theater, but that was practically ancient history.  The only "shootings" we were familiar with were taking place in war movies or on televised westerns like Bonanza, Wagon Train and Gunsmoke.

Twenty minutes or so after that first announcement we were in chem lab, next door to the classroom.  It was then that the principal once again came on the P.A., only this time to inform us that the president was dead.  The mood was one of somber disbelief.  I kept thinking about all the televised press conferences I'd watched during which the young president with the funny accent briefed the media with his customary charm and wit on full display.

My family was glued to the television set that entire weekend and beyond, from news about Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest, to the swearing in of new President Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One, to the murder of Oswald in the Dallas police station by Jack Ruby on live TV, followed by Kennedy's funeral procession from the Capitol to Arlington National Cemetery.

Investigators were soon able to track Oswald's movements following the gunshots.  After descending six flights of stairs to the ground floor, he made a hasty departure from his place of employment, the Texas School Book Depository, located along the presidential motorcade's route.  He took a bus and then a cab to a location near his boarding house in the Oak Cliff neighborhood in south Dallas, where he stayed just a few minutes.  Shortly after leaving that house on foot at about 1:15, Oswald fatally shot Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit, who had stopped him for questioning.  A few blocks away, a shoe store owner grew suspicious when he saw Oswald duck into his doorway just as a Dallas patrol car was cruising up the street.  The store owner followed Oswald toward the Texas Theater, where he witnessed the suspect sneak inside when the ticket seller wasn't looking.  The cops were called, and after a short scuffle, they arrested Oswald for the murder of Tippet.  Of course later, Oswald was fingered as Kennedy's assassin.

The Texas Theater was showing a double feature on its matinee schedule that day.  If you can name the two films, or even one of them, you certainly must be a history buff, a movie maven, or a trivia guru.  Maybe all three.  I am none of those, but somehow it registered in my memory that the titles were Cry Of Battle and War Is Hell.  Until last month, I had not seen either one, but periodically kept an eye out for them on Turner Classic Movies' schedules.  Finally last month, TCM showed Cry Of Battle, and my curiosity prevailed.  I can't honestly say it was worth the wait, but I've now crossed it off my "Wanna See" -- not to be confused with my "Must See" --List.

The story starts out promisingly on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese navy has invaded the Philippines, and a young American civilian, Dave McVey (James MacArthur), is caught in an ambush.  McVey is rescued by Filipino guerrillas trying to oust the invaders.  The rescuers take him to a remote village where he stays in a safe house for months while learning the local language.  Everything is fine until another, older American, merchant seaman Joe Trent (Van Heflin), arrives at the house.  Once Trent finds out that McVey is the son of a wealthy industrialist who had been doing business in the western Pacific before the war, Trent takes McVey under his wing.  Trent figures McVey's old man will reward him someday for protecting his son.

McVey correctly senses that Trent spells trouble, and his hunch proves true when Trent rapes the teenage granddaughter of the safe house's owner.  Trent runs for the hills while McVey momentarily decides to stay, but the girl's incoherent screams well after the fact scare McVey into escaping too, lest he be accused of the crime.  At that point he reluctantly joins Trent, whose experience presents McVey a safer option than roaming the dangerous island alone.

The pair encounters more Filipino guerrillas, including one battle-tested group led by the boyfriend of Sisa (Rita Moreno), and marauding bandits.  Additional skirmishes against the Japanese, ambushes, betrayals and romantic vibes become part of the story.  The arc of the plot shows how McVey is changed by all of these things, not always in a good way.  It is appropriate and instructive that the working title of this film was To Be A Man.

Before the inadvertent connection which Cry Of Battle would make with the events of that tragic day in Dallas, the main reason moviegoers paid attention to the film upon its release was the presence of MacArthur and especially Moreno in the cast.  Even though he was only twenty-five years old, MacArthur was already famous as a quasi-teen idol from his appearance in many Walt Disney productions in the late fifties.  The role of McVey was a major stepping stone in his effort to shed the teen label and step into more mature roles.  As for Moreno, this was only the second movie since her breakthrough portrait as Anita in the musical West Side Story.  In fact, filming of Cry Of Battle was put on hold for three days so that Moreno could fly back to LA from the Philippines to collect her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for that musical. 

War Is Hell, the other half of the Texas Theater double feature, remains for me to be seen.  That movie, not Cry Of Battle, was the one actually playing during the few minutes Oswald was present.  Maybe it's weird, but I'm still interested in watching it someday.  I figure it's a part, albeit a tiny part, of American history.

Here are the movies I have watched in the sixty-eight degree comfort of my family room this past quarter.

1. Cake (2014 drama; Jennifer Aniston, with the help of her housekeeper Adriana Barraza, attempts to overcome physical and emotional pain resulting from a tragic accident followed by a separation from her husband.) B-

2. Crossing Delancy (1988 rom-com; Amy Irving is an independent woman with an important job, but her grandmother, thinking she needs a man in her life, arranges a blind date with pickle vendor Peter Reigert.) B-

3. Cry Of Battle (1963 war drama; James MacArthur is an American trapped on a Phillipine island when WW II breaks out, and gets involved with untrustworthy Van Heflin who looks upon the islanders as pawns.) C+

4. The Deer Hunter (1978 war drama; Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken and John Savage are western Pennsylvania steel town workers who have traumatic experiences fighting in Viet Nam.) A-

5. The Detective (1968 police drama; Frank Sinatra is a no-nonsense detective who, while his marriage to Lee Remick is crumbling, works toward solving the gruesome murder of the gay son of a city government big wig and the apparent suicide of Jacqueline Bisset's husband.) B

6. Stand By Me (1986 drama; four twelve year old boys, led by River Phoenix, hike for miles in a quest to find a dead body in the woods.) B+

7. Summer of '42 (1971 drama; On a New England island, fifteen year old Gary Grimes strikes up a friendship with radiantly beautiful Jennifer O'Neill, a war bride, and by the end of the summer he has become a different person.) B

8. A Summer Place (1959 drama; Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee are college age children of Dorothy McGuire and Richard Egan, who themselves are married to others but for whom the old flame is rekindled.) D

9. The Thin Man (1934 detective drama; William Powell, a retired detective who drinks martinis without pausing, is reluctantly drawn into a missing persons case which turns into a triple homicide.) A-

10. The Wrong Man (Henry Fonda, married to the mentally deteriorating Vera Miles, is a night club musician who has the dual misfortune of being nearly broke and remarkably resembling an armed robber.) C-

Beauvoir

Looking to the left as Momma Cuandito and I drove east along the Gulf Coast on scenic Mississippi Highway 90, we saw mile after mile of vast lawns behind which beautiful mansions once stood.  Before Hurricane Katrina's landfall on August 28-29, 2005, the wealthy residents of those manors could peer from their front windows and porches across the road to the south, and look out beyond the strand to the gulf.  The devastation of Katrina changed all that.  In the ten years which have elapsed, only a very small minority of land owners have chosen to rebuild.  One reason might be their lack of insurance coverage before the storm.  More likely, many simply do not want to take the gamble that another storm of Katrina's magnitude will not occur in the future.  Even for those inclined to roll the dice, the exorbitant premiums which insurers would charge to provide coverage for new dwellings on those vulnerable real estate parcels could be prohibitive.  It is prudent not to dare Mother Nature.

Miraculously, Beauvoir withstood the wind and water surges of Katrina, even though it, too, is situated on 90.  Beauvoir is the name of the estate in Biloxi where Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, lived with his wife and children in the last eleven years of his life.  Before the war began, Davis was a lieutenant in the United States Army, the Secretary Of War under President Franklin Pierce, and a congressman and senator from Mississippi.  Although he was a slave owner and politically championed what he considered to be individual states' rights, he argued against the secession of the thirteen confederate states from the Union.  His powers of persuasion were inadequate, however, and when the rebels fired shots at Fort Sumpter, South Carolina, the War Between The States was on.

Davis' legacy has not been granted nearly the same level of respect and admiration by historians as has the South's highest ranking military officer, General Robert E. Lee.  As a leader of men and a strategist, Lee's description is usually rendered with glowing terms by Civil War buffs.  Davis, on the other hand, is judged to have been an ineffective president, probably the wrong man for the job.  Some of the knocks against him include the failure to address the economic problems of the Confederacy, his off-putting personality, his tendency to promote friends over better qualified candidates for important positions, and his meddling in the minutia of military affairs.  He knew how to run a successful political campaign, but once elected, was not a good deal maker.

In any event, Davis is honored with what is labeled as a "presidential library," on the same grounds as Beauvoir.  It is not as grandiose as libraries honoring more modern day US presidents, such as Kennedy (Boston), Nixon (Yorba Linda, California) and LBJ (Austin).  Nevertheless, it is a must-see for anyone interested in learning more about the Civil War and the man who went from American statesman to renegade executive.  We spent less than a full hour browsing the modest library filled with admirable art and unique artifacts, then scampered on foot a hundred yards in the chilly Magnolia State air over to the Davis house, where a tour awaited us.

I have to admit that when I first walked into Beavoir, I figured the tour would take about twenty minutes, tops.  The living quarters is comprised of only four rooms in the interior of the one-story house, and four smaller rooms built on the large back porch.  A long commons area separates the two interior bedrooms on the east side from the parlor and smoking lounge on the west.  The four "porch rooms" functioned as "his" and "her" bedrooms, a tiny dining room for the children, and a larger dining room for the adults.  The kids were relegated to the smaller room until about age fourteen, when they may have been deemed to have acquired manners adequate to merit admission to dine with their parents in the main dining room.

 

My estimate of ten minutes was way off, thanks to the wonderful docent who hosted us, Jim Kalis.  Sporting a trimmed silver beard and wearing a black brimmed hat, a crisp white shirt and a string tie, Jim looked like he could have been a plantation owner straight out of an antebellum movie.  He told us he was a seventy-five year old grandfather, originally from Washington state.  Prior to his gig at Beauvoir he was a guide at other points of interest, mostly in the South.  Following Katrina he became deeply involved in the restoration and maintenance of Beauvoir.  Like many docents, he had a flair for spinning some interesting humorous yarns about the place.  What follows are a few things we learned from Jim.

 

Typical of almost all other mansions built in the mid-nineteenth century, Beauvoir's kitchen was housed in a separate building, located about fifty feet behind the main dwelling.  The two causes for such positioning were concern for fires and oppressive heat, both emanating from the kitchen.  A path dubbed the "whistle walk" connected the two structures.  At meal time, slaves and servants, depending on the period of history, transported the prepared food from the kitchen to the house.  According to Jim, said transporters were instructed to whistle as they were moving, so that the overseer could know that the subordinant wasn't eating any food on the way.  "It's pretty hard to whistle with a pork chop in your mouth," said Jim.

 

As the father of two daughters, just like Davis, I was amused by the curved mirror situated on the wall between the front parlor and the adjacent rear smoking lounge.  The southerners refer to it as a "chaperone's mirror."  When a gentleman came to call on one of the Davis daughters, propriety demanded that they not be left entirely alone.  Accordingly, the young couple would sit in the front parlor, while a chaperone could keep an eye on things from her vantage point in the back lounge by looking at the mirror.  The curvature enabled the chaperone to see what was going on in the parlor without actually being in the parlor.  How ingenious!  Jim did not mention if the  phrase "keep four on the floor" was used in that era.

 

Speaking of "curves," it is noteworthy that in the nineteenth century, homeowners expended an enormous amount of effort putting on the dog.  Impressing house visitors was important (maybe because the owners had no fancy cars to park in their driveways), so much so that a little chicanery was often utilized.  For example, the main commons area of Beauvoir has curved corners where the walls and the ceiling come together.  This was a sign of architectural craftsmanship found only in the manors of the wealthy.  The builders of Beauvoir took it a step further by painting the trim on the ceiling of some other rooms to make the corners appear to be curved -- an optical illusion, if you will -- even though the walls and ceiling of those rooms actually met at straight ninety degree angles.

 

Along the same lines, the Beauvoir doors were made of cypress, a relatively inexpensive wood.  But for the sake of appearances, the Davis family (and others before and after them) had the doors varnished, and painted grain lines into the wood to give the appearance of oak, a more valuable material than cypress.  The song "You're So Vain" comes to mind.

 

Fittingly, Jim shared this story with us near the end of our tour.  Jefferson Davis was the tenth of ten children.  Although his middle initial was "F," he rarely used it.  After some reporters failed to get an honest response from Davis to reveal his middle name, they went to his mother for the answer.  She told them that while she was pregnant with Jeff she realized he would be the last of her brood.  Therefore, she explained, the "F" stood for "Finis."         

Movie Review: "Selma"

"Selma": B+.  My favorite class during high school was Democracy, taught by Father Henry Schneider at Bishop Ryan my senior year, 1964-65.  The subject matter was approximately 25% civics, for which we had a text book, and 75% current events.  For that latter component, each student had to subscribe to Time Magazine, which in those days was the most respected nationwide purveyor of printed news in the country.  Every week Father Schneider assigned at least four sections of Time: on Mondays he quizzed us on the National section; on Tuesdays, the World section; on Wednesdays, the Business section, and any other section he deemed to be of particular interest; and on Thursdays, the cover story.  We had four Time-related quizzes a week, plus whatever test or quiz he threw at us for civics.  As a result, there has hardly been a time in my life when I was more up to speed in what was going on not only in the US, but worldwide.

And what a time of history it was.  The presidential elections were held near the beginning of the school year.  Although the results were lopsided -- incumbent Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson captured 61% of the votes, while Republican Senator Barry Goldwater ("In your heart, you know he's right") won only five southern states plus his home state, Arizona -- our classroom informal discussions and formal debates were a highlight.  The Cold War was in a deep freeze, and the Viet Nam war was escalating.  "Red" China was a mysterious enemy, and a hot topic was whether that country under its new leadership should be admitted to the United Nations.  Although the US had already won the race to the moon, the Russian and American cosmonauts and astronauts were still making headlines.  But the constant news item which captivated many of us virtually every week was the civil rights movement.

Considering Minot's remote location in a conservative rural state, I found the general attitude of the Ryan students toward civil rights to be quite progressive and open-minded.  Ryan was not the most diverse of schools.  But the proximity of the Magic City to Minot Air Force Base contributed to a culture of hospitality.  New military families were regularly appearing, having been transferred to the tundra from all over the country.  As a class, the concept of ingrained hatred based on skin color was hard for us to fathom.  Time Magazine's pictures and text surrounding the Selma to Montgomery march in the spring of 1965 captivated us more than any other singular event.  Selma was roughly the same size as Minot.  How could the two communities be so different?

In 2006, I finally had a chance to visit Selma with Momma Cuan when we took our memorable Dixie Trip. (Some day I may post about it.)  Even though it was more than an hour in each direction out of our way, Selma was on my short "must see" list.   The sight of the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge, which looked exactly the same as it did in the 1965 national news footage, sent a shiver through my bones.  (Only the experience of seeing the Texas School Book Depository in person had the same effect on me.)  It was here that the marchers, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, made history.  We spent a little time driving around the town, which revealed no hint of its turbulent past from four decades ago.  Before we left we also checked out the Brown Chapel (actually a good size church), six blocks from the bridge, where the marchers began their brave expeditions.

Given my personal interest in Selma dating back to my Democracy class, you can understand why I was very eager and curious to see the new movie Selma.

The movie simultaneously covers a battle and a war.  The "war," for which film critics and historians have accused the filmmakers of playing loose with the facts, concerns the civil rights movement and the face-to-face strategy debates between Dr. King (David Oyelowo) and President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson).  According to the film, Johnson wanted to hold back on the push for minority voting rights, deeming it wiser to concentrate more on eliminating other aspects of discrimination, such as inequality in education, employment and the judicial system, and access to public facilities.  King saw voting rights as the piece of the puzzle that could not wait.  For example, as he explained to the president, blacks were practically barred from receiving a constitutionally guaranteed right to be judged in court by a jury of their peers, because only registered voters were permitted to stock the jury pools.  Unfair state voter registration rules kept minorities out.  One reason why King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference picked Selma for action is because fifty percent of the town's residents were black, but only two percent were registered voters.

The "battle" was the march from Selma to the Alabama state capital, Montgomery, a distance of fifty-four miles.  As the movie displays, there were actually three attempts at such marches, each bearing drastically different outcomes.  The Edmund Pettus Bridge, spanning the wide Alabama River, is the ominous backdrop for each expedition.  These three mimi-chapters were the unquestioned highlights of the film.  Even for those who are familiar with the story, the large scale dramatization of those events is impressively shocking.  The two-fold purpose of the march was to call national attention to the plight of southern blacks, and to put pressure on Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth), with the urging of LBJ, to use state resources to give black Alabamans equal protection under the law.  Missions accomplished, although not without blood, sweat, tears and even murder.

I was afraid Selma would fall into the same rut that 2012's Lincoln (reviewed here on November 28, 2012; C+) did.  Both movies are about famous American leaders who were at the forefront of civil rights movements and who were gifted with tremendous oratory skills.  The newer film, directed by Ava DuVernay, has a few too many scenes featuring lengthly speeches, but unlike the older film, those "preachy" scenes are spaced more smartly, with other, action scenes interspersed.  One doesn't get the feeling that the story is only a series of speeches.  So, my caution regarding Selma was only partially (maybe "minimally" would be a better adverb) warranted.

Another shortcoming which those two films share is the number of characters who appear but who are not identified or explained.  For example, Andrew Young (Andre Holland) and Ralph Abernathy (Colman Domingo) are well known names even today, but in Selma they're relegated to such minor parts that we are unable to identify them on screen.  Malcom X (Nigel Thatch) appears on the screen for only a minute or two, apparently for the sole purpose of establishing who he is when we find out a little later that he's been killed offscreen.

Wilkinson proves once again that he is a versatile actor.  His LBJ is exactly how I remember the old Texan, with the weight of the world on his shoulders in the Oval Office.  Conversely, Dylan Baker's version of FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover seems random and disconnected.  Roth's George Wallace falls somewhere in the middle; at least the greasy pompadour looked accurate.

I predict great things for newcomers Carmen Ejogo, who played Coretta Scott King, and Oyelowo.  Their speech and movements were obviously results of long hours of research and preparation for their respective roles.  The film contains innuendo of Martin's infidelity, a problem which, among other things, causes him to delay his participation in one of the marches.  The scene in which Coretta, wanting the truth, confronts her husband is a touching display of acting at its finest.

My parents lived in Texas for several months in 1942 after my dad enlisted in the Army Air Corps.  When I was a grade schooler growing up in Illinois, they once told me that, for many southerners, the Civil War was not over.  After watching Selma it would be hard for me to think my parents misspoke.  It's disheartening to think that Selma's historical events were "only" fifty years ago.  The need to carry on the battle for equality lives on today, and not just in Dixie.  Prejudice has not been eradicated, but were it not for the efforts of King and his supporters, America's twenty-first century racial chasm would be even wider.  That renders Selma an important movie.      

Out Of The Mouths Of Presidents

Today Simon & Schuster is releasing the new book by the forty-fifth president of the United States.  I am sure you know the author to whom I am referring.  To mark this momentous book world occasion, I've decided to write this "interactive" post.

Whenever the subjects of presidential administrations and presidential politics are broached, I tend to think of famous quotations uttered (sometimes allegedly) by US presidents and other celebrities from the annals of American history.   I have always been fascinated by famous quotes.  They play a big part of our nation's legacy.  One of the ironic things about movie quotes is that some of the most famous ones were never actually uttered on screen.  For example, despite popular belief, in Casablanca neither Humphrey Bogart nor Ingrid Bergman ever says "Play it again, Sam."  Bergman does say, "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake..."  Likewise, impressionists of Cary Grant are fond of using "Judy, Judy, Judy!"  In fact, Grant never spoke those words in any of his dozens of films, even though it does sound like something one of his characters would have said.  The same might be true of historical quotes.  Did Paul Revere ever literally proclaim, "The British are coming"?

During my eleven years of teaching, I created hundreds of tests and quizzes for my students.  I almost never used pre-fab tests, preferring instead to write my own to fit my expectations for the kids.  (In all humility, I also figured I was better at it than the guys and gals at Scott Foresman, Houghton Mifflin, or wherever.) Math tests and quizzes were the easiest to draft, and by far the easiest to grade.  I particularly enjoyed composing literature tests on novels which the students read together as a class.  A typical test would have the following sections: (i) straight forward fact questions, to get at the who, what, where, etc.; (ii) matching quotes which were peculiar to or identified with certain characters with those characters; (iii) matching descriptions of characters to those characters; (iv) rearranging a series of four or five (or more) events into chronological order; and of course, (v) a couple of essay questions to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Momma Cuandito is a volunteer at Fashions On Main Street (aka Learning In Style), a school run by the Sisters Of St. Joseph for immigrant adults.  The primary focus is on English, math and computer skills.  The teachers at Fashions periodically assist the students in preparing for citizenship tests.  I have seen many of the questions, and believe me, the average American-born adult, including yours truly, would not want to take the citizenship test that our government requires of our immigrants.  The test is replete with obscure dates, rules, laws and other minutia.

 

As hard as it is to believe, the US Department Of Homeland Security has not, to this point, asked me to create a revised test for citizenship.  However, I expect that news of my fame as a Test Creator Extraordianaire will eventually trickle over to Washington, DC, and at that point the request for my help will be forthcoming.  In anticipation of that day, and recalling my years as a Boy Scout during which we were trained to always be prepared, I have already written a rough draft of a section of the test, concentrating on famous quotes from American presidents (keeping in mind the caveat discussed in the second paragraph above).  It seems to me that any immigrant aspiring to become a US citizen should be able to match most of the following quotes with the persons who said them.  My test is much easier (read: fairer) than what's currently being used, and I am the epitome of fairness.  I'm pretty confident that most of the readers of this blog will achieve a perfect score of 16.

 

One of the many (?) benefits of reading my blog is that you get an advanced peek at that portion of my test. Actually, come to think of it, the NSA has probably already covertly tapped into my computer, and the patriotic spies are reading this as I type.  Good luck to those of you proceeding to take the test.  By the way, it's pass/fail, with a score of 10 correct being the line of demarcation.

 

JOHNNY ROCK'S CITIZENSHIP TEST - Oral US History

 

Directions: Match the famous quote with the American president who uttered it.

 

___ 1. "I cannot tell a lie."

 

___ 2. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

 

___ 3. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation..."

 

___ 4. "After all, the chief business of the American people is business."

 

___ 5. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

 

___ 6. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

 

___ 7. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

 

___ 8. "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

 

___ 9. "I am not a crook."

 

___ 10. "I've looked on many women with lust.  I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

 

___ 11. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

 

___ 12. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."

 

___ 13. "Mission accomplished."

 

___ 14. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."

 

___ 15. "What difference at this point does it make?"

 

___ 16. "The buck stops here."

 

***

 

A. Abraham Lincoln

 

B. Barack Obama

 

C. Calvin Coolidge

 

D. Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

E. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 

F. George W. Bush

 

G. George Washington

 

H. Harry S. Truman

 

I.  Hillary Rodham Clinton

 

J. Jimmy Carter

 

K. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

 

L. Lyndon Baines Johnson

 

M. Richard Milhous Nixon

 

N. Ronald Reagan

 

O. Thomas Jefferson

 

P.  William Jefferson Clinton

 

***

 

You may have noticed that the quotes above are placed in chronological order, except for the last one.  As the blogger, I reserve the right to do that for dramatic juxtapositioning.  Outside the context of a blog, I probably would have mixed up the chronology of the quotes.

 

Answers: 1-G; 2-O; 3-A; 4-C; 5-E; 6-D; 7-K; 8-L; 9-M; 10-J; 11-N; 12-P; 13-F; 14-B; 15-I; 16-H