Selma

Last night we went to see Selma at our local cinema, incidentally the Malton Palace Cinema is the antithesis of the corporate multiplex. There is a warm welcome and I had a coffee in proper china and Marion a ginger beer in a glass. You can even have a beer (Black Sheep) or a glass of wine. The seats are generous so all in all it is a pleasant experience.

I thought I knew what to expect but for a film where you know the basic plot and where there is no surprise ending it held you in the palm of it’s hand. Why was that, in some ways it was because of the power of the story, and the shock as to how recently people had to fight for basic rights in the United States? Coming from Britain it is all too easy to come from the moral high ground here, we must not forget that Selma was contemporaneous with the Notting Hill Race Riots. Racism was less ingrained in society, but it was insidious and ever present never the less.

So why was the film so good, it had great actors with a fantastic script, this was all the more remarkable because they could not use Martin Luther King’s actual words as they are copyrighted by his estate, the licence to which is currently held by Steven Spielberg. In a sense this improved the film because you were not waiting for the famous words and critiquing their interpretation.

There was a great central performance from David Oyelowo, he did not take the easy road, which would have been to portray King as a saint like figure, but instead he explored the complexities of his character, the man who was flawed in his personal life, who was an astute planner and maybe a manipulator. It showed that his movement was not united and indeed not sometimes welcomed in towns like Selma. I do find it difficult to believe that he was not shortlisted for an Oscar.

As an aside it was interesting to see how many British actors were in the movie, British actors played the Kings, LBJ, and Governor Wallace, major US figures. However I came across an article that pointed out that Meryl Streep has played Margaret Thatcher. I heard an interview with Oyelowo where he said that this was partly because he had to go to the US to obtain good and challenging roles to play. They were simply not available in Britain, perhaps our equality of opportunity is not as good as we think.

So a good evening out, at one time entertaining and challenging. There was certainly much to discuss on the way home.