Talkin' Bout Revolution: JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

A key sequence in Judas and the Black Messiah is a rally in which a charismatic leader of the Black Panther party, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), has the audience totally in his control. It’s the moment to which all emotional and dramatic through-lines in the tough, serious, and sensitive historical picture have built, and it’s the moment from which all of the major players are soon in position for the inevitable tragic end. His speech is a work of impassioned rhetoric, powerfully incantatory, delivered in commanding staccato and deep rumbling righteousness, sweat beading on his brow, building to climactic call-and-response. “I am! A revolutionary! I am! A revolutionary!” The crowd erupts, awoken with fiery political fervor renewed and refreshed. Among their number: Hampton’s pregnant fiancee (Dominique Fishback), his head of security (Lakeith Stanfield), and the FBI agent (Jesse Plemons) who has already put in motion the events that will, with information from a mole in the Panthers, bring this whole chapter to a bloody end. Told with the high-gloss appeal of any Hollywood true-story epic animated by politics, social upheaval, and startling tragedy — swooping camera, copious period detail, polished historicity, patient accumulation of cause and effect — director and co-writer Shaka King illuminates this pivotal moment in gripping characterization and mournful engagement.

It’s a Civil Rights story shorn of the usual white lenses that come with telling these stories at a level of studio prestige. (Not since Spike Lee's Malcolm X, really.) This film is alive with the particulars of injustice from the clear and angry perspective of the oppressed. Drawing the story in vivid recreation, King builds a portrait of a time through small spaces — intimate meetings, quiet dialogues, tense strategizing — as the Chicago headquarters of the Illinois Panthers slowly builds power. We see persuasive speeches, attempts to grow their base by teaming up with other mistreated groups in the city, time spent building programs for free breakfast for kids and free healthcare for seniors. We also see the growing suspicion of law enforcement, who somehow see the group as a challenge to their power — a reflection of violent racial and political prejudice. The film then positions itself at a point of view in the crucible between these poles. Caught impersonating an FBI agent in order to steal a car, a troubled young man (Stanfield) is hauled into the bureau’s local office and given an ultimatum: become a paid informant or go to prison for years. He takes the job. Thus he’s the bomb under the table, in the Hitchcockian sense, as he’s at first reluctantly, but then quite legitimately becoming a member of the Panthers. He was told they’re dangerous, but he sees the good they do and grows increasingly conflicted, torn between his growing political convictions and his sense of self-preservation.

As the film builds to its wrenching finale, King keeps the performances central to the powerful effect. We see the yearning for justice in the young men and women who are drawn into Hampton’s project. We see the older-than-his-years confidence of Hampton’s powerful presence; it’s easy to see why so many would place their confidence, their hope in him. We see, too, how he was made a scapegoat, how dogged the feds were in making him another figure to be brought down. Even if you don’t know your history, you know this story is moving nowhere good. With great clarity, the film consistently brushes past a legacy of easy historical assumptions and cliched Black Panther portrayals. King lingers generously in soft moments—a romantic interlude, an impromptu community restoration project, a poem gently read—before smashing into cruelty—a shootout with vindictive cops, or a vise-tightening moment of casual prejudice between high-ranking agents. The film is convincing in every moment, the ensemble so uniformly tuned into the tone of the endeavor. Its prestige pleasures of crackling design and grainy cinematography — Sean Bobbit catching beauty and grit with equally dexterous use of shadow and light — extend to a parade of great character turns in even small parts, like Lil Rel Howery in a fur coat like out of a blaxploitation classic as a shady dealer, or Alysia Joy Powell as a grieving mother. By centering the humanity of all the major players, and extending that grace to even one-scene figures, this becomes a film of impeccable craft that’s more than a reenactment; it’s an embodiment of these interpersonal stakes that exploded into something momentous for a movement.

Slave Narrative: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

Solomon Northup was a talented violinist who was hired to play for parties and other social gatherings near his home. He lived in upstate New York with his wife and three children. Because he was born in 1808 and was black, it is important to note that he was a free man. But that would not always be the case. British director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, based on Northup’s memoir of the same name, tells the story of how, in 1841, this free man was kidnapped, taken to the South, and sold into slavery. It is not a film about slavery, but about a slave. In the process it becomes a catalogue of injustices that can only hint at the depths of depravity the American slave trade contained. Told wholly from a black perspective, the film belongs to a rich history of slave narratives, a harrowing literary genre that has rarely made the leap to the movie screen so intact. Too often softened and glamorized by interjecting noble white presence into the core of the narrative arc, this film finds at its center simply, powerfully, Mr. Northup. The kidnapping is only an extra layer of injustice, to most fully embody the tragedy of slavery and make thoroughly real how dehumanizing an institution it is.

Slavery is something that many Americans understand historically and academically, but here is a film that says look, feel the pain, understand. This is a film of unrelenting brutality. Though I sat through the whole film, I must admit to averting my eyes at the worst of the violence. A scene late in the film lingers on flesh torn from a slave woman’s back as the plantation’s master whips her. The bloody ripping and slicing is a monstrously effective visual that’s uncomfortable and upsetting. It feels honest, not exploitative of real world violence nor mean-spirited towards the audience. It’s simply presented, raw and exposed. It at times recalls Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ with its commitment to showing battered bodies, torn flesh, and logging blows of whips and cudgels. The sound design blasts these strikes out of the speakers loudly, rattling the audience’s eardrums with their force and violence. When Northup is first captured, he pleads for his freedom, citing his free man status. “Show us your papers,” the kidnappers snarl. When Northup cannot – nor could he move his manacled hands even if he had papers – his back is bludgeoned in one long take, each smack one of terrifying force, physically and aurally.

Viewed in conjunction with McQueen’s other films, the prison hunger strike procedural Hunger and sex addiction drama Shame, it’s clear he’s a director interested in the human body in relationship to the human soul and the limits past which both can be pushed. In 12 Years a Slave, the sins of the country’s moral negotiations are raked across the bodies of the enslaved, while others go about their business, aware, but unable or unwilling to help. In a harrowing moment of sustained painful suspense, McQueen’s camera watches for an agonizingly long period of time as a slave hangs from a noose on a low branch, saved only by standing and shifting on his tiptoes slipping in mud. On all sides, those who live on the plantation – black and white alike – continue their routines, eyes averted. In the distance, we can hear the sound of children playing.

There are no dates placed on screen to mark the passage of time. The title plainly states the narrative’s duration. We know that Solomon Northup will remain enslaved for 12 long, painful years, but we’re as lost in the accumulation of incident as he is. Time is a blur of terrors and anxiety that slowly gives way to reluctant resignation. He is trying to survive. At the center of the film is a monumental performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor, long a welcome screen presence in films as diverse as Inside Man, Love Actually, and Children of Men. Here, Ejiofor shows remarkable restraint, never overplaying the emotional journey, trusting the facts of the narrative and subtle shifts in his behavior and expression to sell the depths of horror Northup saw and the resilience Northup displayed. John Ridley’s script follows him from a slave market overseen by Paul Giamatti to several different plantations owned by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, and Bryan Batt. Though there are some differences between them – some moderately kinder, others ruthlessly cruel – they all are doing their part to perpetuate poisonous beliefs and uphold a horrendous institution.

Though the film is pitched at a relentlessly grim and miserable abusive level, one can never feel prepared for the cruelty to come. McQueen’s use of carefully composed, sleek cinematography and studied framing (with his usual cinematographer Sean Bobbitt) doesn’t get in the way of the impact. When a plantation owner’s wife suddenly hurls a glass at a slave woman’s head, object making contact with skull with a sickening crack, it is startling. This is a world where that doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. And that’s what horrifying. The writing for and acting of the ensemble has a sense of overwhelming specificity. The film never stoops to viewing either blacks or whites homogenously. Much like the owners have their differences, we see here slaves who become favored (Alfre Woodard), who agitate for rebellion (Michael K. Williams), and who are singled out for specific abuses (Lupita Nyong’o). There’s a variety here in a film that finds much diversity in corners of history that too easily are reduced into types. It helps keep the film from finding false notes of victory. When Northup’s 12 years are up and he’s finally freed, he finds no retribution and only his own personal victory. As he’s driven away, he leaves every other character behind, still slaving or enslaved. 

We’re currently living through a time in this country in which a great many people find it politically convenient not to know things about our history, to play fast and loose with facts and behave cavalier towards context. We’re living in a time when people of a certain political persuasion can not only seriously speak lies like slavery was “a blessing in disguise” or that the South’s economy was not built on the backs of slaves, but have a great many people believe such erroneous sentiments. Here is a film that lays out the facts of history unblinking, in all its horror and heartbreak, in all its soul-draining sinfulness and tells us to look at just one story, to feel just a fraction of centuries of pain, and to see anew our history as it is recreated in front of our eyes.

He Can't Help Himself: SHAME

It would be a mistake to call Shame’s Brandon Sullivan a hedonist. His life is controlled and partitioned, a place for everything and everything in its place. He’s a fairly successful office worker who goes to work in an anonymous New York City office building and then returns to his spare apartment with a minimum of complications. It’s a life of quiet desperation, for the man has arranged his life so carefully in order to hide his darkest, most shameful addiction. He’s not an alcoholic, though he does like to drink. He’s not a womanizer, though he loves flirtatious pursuit. No, he’s a sex addict. For him, it’s not about relationships. It’s not about the pleasure anymore. It’s not even about meeting new people or finding some small moment of solace from his lonely, meaningless life. It’s about the desperate need to feel something, to constantly seek new sources of stimulus, about clandestine, risky tendencies that drive him to find someone, anyone, to help him get his next fix.

Of course, the film’s not really interested in exploring sex addiction, at least not in any truly meaningful or distressing way. Wouldn’t it be all the more disturbing to be a sex addict who wasn’t as handsome and capable of charm as one Michael Fassbender? The terrific European actor has had something of a Hollywood breakthrough year after first catching eyes with his art house success in the 2008 IRA hunger strike drama Hunger and crossover scene stealing as World War II’s coolest film critic in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds. This year alone he was Jane Eyre’s Rochester, Carl Jung, and proto Magneto. His performance in Shame is without a doubt the most fearless of his roles this year. It’s a portrait of a desperate man who hides his basest addictions under a calm, hesitantly charming mask of dignified yuppie tranquility. It’s little wonder why women would be attracted to him and why he wouldn’t let them stick around long enough to figure out who he really is.

Unfortunately, there is one woman in his life in a position to figure it out. That’s his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), a fragile and aimless young woman who shows up unexpectedly at his apartment one afternoon. She’s been kicked out of wherever she had been and needs a place to stay. She’s a singer. She says she’s making real money now. She just needs a warm place to pass the time between gigs. She just needs the comfort and care of someone. Brandon’s rattled by her appearance. He tries his best to hide his discomfort and his addiction. She gets enough hints, though. It’s not an easy thing to hide a life given over entirely to basest pursuits, especially in such a furtive, urgent way.

Brandon’s boss (James Badge Dale) is a typical macho womanizer, constantly hitting on waitresses and commenting on women’s bodies. For some reason, that’s behavior that doesn’t fall too far outside the norm. Because Brandon’s desires take a compulsive, secretive, insatiable form, it reads as depressive, as a man trying to cover up ambiguous psychological problems with physical sensation. One of the most thrilling sequences in the film, a string of moments that have extraordinarily simple suspense and humor, involves Brandon going on a date with a co-worker (Nicole Beharie) and trying to have normal conversation, to open up emotionally with another human being. In the process, he has to withhold his urges, resist slipping up and inadvertently revealing how he spends his time. It’s difficult for him to be without a clear view to his next hit.

British artist Steve McQueen, who directed Fassbender in Hunger, has made a tightly controlled film with a detached clinical eye. It’s a film that is extraordinarily well made on every technical level. Harry Escott’s pounding score and the still, smooth compositions that gain a sinuous power with each camera movement from cinematographer Sean Bobbitt contribute to a skillful evocation of a man who’s every waking moment is given over to his addiction, finding more avenues to find what he wants or ways to cover up and otherwise make possible the maintenance of a “normal” life.  This is a powerfully acted film, with Fassbender and Mulligan exuding a kind of neediness and an intimate shared trauma that’s as concerning and strangely symbiotically damaged as any relationship on film in recent memory. These are characters with deeply felt problems from their pasts that are not easily resolved in their present circumstances. They’re aware of the damage. They may even be aware of the consequences. But they’re powerless to fix themselves, let alone help each other.

The only thing holding the film back is its thematic game of Mad Libs. It’s a film not just open to interpretation; it’s open to any interpretation. I love sparse narratives and exercises in style as much as the next guy, but here McQueen pushes the fuzziness of character to a detrimental extreme. The relationship between Brandon and Sissy is ripe for analysis. At one point she tells him, “we came from a bad place, but that doesn’t make us bad people.” So, they have a shared past that is also a troubled past. What does that mean? What are Sissy’s emotional problems? Fill in past trauma here. What is Brandon’s problem? Fill in psychological explanation here. From what kind of “bad place” do they come? Fill in backstory here. You get to pick whatever problems you want to read into them. The ambiguity is at once thrilling and frustrating, as if McQueen had such a killer idea for a film that he didn’t want to risk saying too much thematically for fear of being called on the vacant ideas the end result covers up only too well.