Loading ...I think that almost everyone who has seen the movie Selma, released in the US on the 9th of this month, can agree that if not entertaining, it certainly is moving and inspirational. That is not what I am here to discuss.
There has been endless controversy among critics and moviegoers who think that the character of Lyndon B. Johnson was not portrayed accurately at the hands of the director of Selma, Ava DuVernay. Richard Cohen, opinion writer for The Washington Post, clearly stated in his piece that he was “deeply moved” by the movie Selma. “Too bad, though, that the movie had to go Hollywood on Lyndon Baines,” he later said.
One other critique came from Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs, Joseph A. Califano Jr. “Contrary to the portrait painted by ‘Selma,’ Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were partners in this effort,” said Califano.
As I see it, LBJ and Dr. King were partners in the movie. The only thing that suggests they were not was how conflicted LBJ was. In the movie, LBJ and MLK were working towards achieving the same goals for America; MLK was just more decisive than LBJ, and was completely on one side. There were obviously some scenes in which Johnson looked as if he were going to act irrationally towards Dr. King and do something that goes against everything they believe in. However, this bring up another question: Do directors really have to be accurate in how they portray historical events?
No. There is a huge difference between documentaries and films; one is meant to inform, and the other is meant to entertain.
The purpose of a movie is to make money and to entertain people going to the theaters. Many people go to the movie theater as an escape from their real lives, just to immerse themselves in a completely different environment. How are they supposed to do this when a portion of movies have directors who are forced to limit themselves? Yes, history can often be very dramatic and thrilling. But what people don’t understand is what it is like to be in the shoes of a director.
A director comes into a movie with a vision, and translating that vision to the big screen is not always as simple as it seems. What if Duvernay had been completely true to the story of MLK? I think there would have been less conflict in the movie, causing the stakes and desperation of the civil rights movement to be lowered.
As a response to all of the controversy going on around Selma, DuVernay responded with a tweet saying. “Bottom line is folks should interrogate history. Don’t take my word for it or LBJ rep’s word for it. Let it come alive for yourself.”
Links to Washington post articles mentioned in the piece: