...regarding my review of "The Butler."
i loved your review TOO.....interesting i found out today, the cast is
mostly Black stars and director Black director Lee Daniels, the made a
powerful movie it seems, have not seen it it yet, but the writer was a
white man named DANNY STRONG. Hmmm, wonder
why they did not hire a black screenwriter for the job? maybe STRONG
knows the Hollywood drama style?
On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 7:07 PM, Dr. Jim Castagnera <castagnerac@aol.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Dan!
In case you missed it:
'The Butler' has Oscar potential
Monday, August 19, 2013
By JIM CASTAGNERA castagnerac@aol.com
Almost exactly seven years ago in this space I praised Forest
Witaker for his brilliant performance as Ugandan dictator Edi Amin in
The Last King of Scotland. Turns out I was right on the money: Witaker
went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor at the 2007 Academy Awards.
Well, whether he wins a second such accolade remains to be seen. But
no one can deny that Witaker has done it again… this time in the role of
Cecil Gaines, a fictional rendition of Eugene Allen, who worked in the
White House during eight presidential terms, spanning Ike's election in
1952 through Reagan's first term and half of his second.
A November 7, 2008 Washington Post article by Wil Haygood - "A Butler
Well Served by This Election"
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-butler-well-served-by-this-election/2013/08/13/961d5d78-0456-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html]
- inspired the screenplay by Danny Strong.
Cecil's story is the perfect vehicle for a survey of the
African-American experience from the 1920s to the election of Barack
Obama.
The story opens in 1926 in a Georgia cotton field, where the
10-year-old Cecil sees the rape of his mother and the murder of his
father, all in the space of one scorching summer afternoon. His
"workers' compensation" for these atrocities is to be taken into the
plantation home as a "House N*****."
Most of us, I suspect, would have been crushed by Cecil's childhood
trauma. Ever resilient, he learns not only his trade, but also how to
read and write.
Recognizing that eventually the master of the house will put a bullet
through his head, just like his daddy's, Cecil strikes out on his own.
He finds employment at one hotel and then another, the second drawing
him north to Washington. Its there that he comes to the attention of the
incorrigible racist, who is in charge of the White House domestic
staff.
This guy pays his black staffers 40 percent less than his white
employees. But it is the White House, after all, and the salary, such as
it is, enables Cecil and his wife (Oprah Winfrey) to lead a middle
class existence.
Gaines is trained to ensure that "when I'm in the room, it feels
empty." This, of course, doesn't prevent him from overhearing Ike, JFK,
LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter and "Ronnie" discussing race relations and
civil rights policy. What he hears sometimes inspires and sometimes
discourages him.
Meanwhile, his two sons take divergent paths, neither of which
pleases the butler. One becomes a Freedom Rider and then a Black
Panther, while the other enlists and heads for Vietnam, as the Sixties
take their terrible twists and turns.
The Panther progeny cannot appreciate his father's achievement, until
Martin Luther King explains to him that Black domestics are
"subversives, even if they don't know it." Cecil doesn't seem to know it
either. But he's crystal clear about wanting to lift his boys to the
next level. The tension between such members of an emerging Black middle
class and their radical descendents, who are advised by Malcolm X to
reject peaceful gradualism, is a core theme of the film.
The brilliant Witaker and an adequate Oprah Winfrey are joined by a
star studded (pardon the cliché; it fits) cast that includes Vanessa
Redgrave, David Oyelowo, Terrence Howard (who seems to be turning up
everywhere this year), Cuba Gooding, Robin Williams, and Alan Rickman.
Do I have any quibbles? Director Lee Daniels perhaps should have
picked up the pace and pared down the 132-minute movie a bit. Perhaps he
could have gone a little lighter on the melodrama. But, by and large,
this is a powerful yarn on both the personal and historic levels… well
worth the price of admission and likely to win an Oscar or two, whether
for Witaker and/or other significant contributors to this project.
http://www.tnonline.com/2013/aug/19/butler-has-oscar-potential
No comments:
Post a Comment