Muddled road to glory:HBO's 'Boycott'
Wren, Celia
MEDIA Celia Wren HUDDLED ROAD TO GLORY HBO's 'Boycott' Don't believe what you read, and only half of what you hear," a rumor-wary civil rights activist cautions in Boycott, HBO's commendable...
...By making the gesture in such a visually flashy manner, Boycott draws our attention to that PC mentality...
...This alarming juxtaposition points out, and none too subtly, that we can't accept anything at face value...
...If s jazzl" At the same time, with its potpourri of cinematic formats, the film continually reminds us of that truism oft bandied about these days: that we are a culture fixated upon the visual image...
...It is no accident that when the effete, elegant activist and journalist Bayard Rustin (Erik Todd Dellums) shows up on the Kings' doorstep, the metaphor he uses to describe the boycott is an auditory one: "Mass action and black social gospel— if s a new form of protest...
...As a result, one feels that the filmmakers are making a perfunctory effort to acknowledge multiple viewpoints mostly because thaf s the politically correct thing to do...
...An instant later, we find ourselves contemplating a snippet of black-and-white interview— a thuggish white Alabaman who stares straight at the camera, cigarette dangling from his lip, and announces, "Folks just gonna have to get smart and join the JQan...
...Boycott points out that fact by dovetailing moments of group wrangling with shots of King drafting sermons in his study or explaining his position to his wife, Coretta (the glamorous Carmen Ejogo...
...And when he calmly wins a pool game against two swaggering youths in a nightclub, you're inclined to agree with them that he "must have had some divine help...
...the way to "spread the word," as he observes to his fellow activists, is to get out in the field and talk...
...Commonweal 18 March 23,2001...
...It's a performance thaf s all the more enthralling for being understated...
...In fact, at some points in the movie the different perspectives surge so abruptly into view and with such frenzy that Johnson and his creative team, rather than the civil rights movement itself, threaten to take center stage...
...The scene in the nightclub is one of several pointing to an interesting contrast the filmmakers probably didn't intend...
...Or should they be more ambitious, shunning compromise (as Parks does when she refuses to pay a $10 court fine) in hope of challenging discrimination on a national level...
...MEDIA Celia Wren HUDDLED ROAD TO GLORY HBO's 'Boycott' Don't believe what you read, and only half of what you hear," a rumor-wary civil rights activist cautions in Boycott, HBO's commendable new film (televised throughout March) about the 1955-56 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama...
...Watching the movie, in other words, we are really watching ourselves...
...The creators of Boycott are only too aware that a straightforward narrative about this seminal moment in American history—an episode set in motion when Rosa Parks defied "Whites Only" seating in a Montgomery public bus— could allow viewers to luxuriate in moral superiority, congratulating themselves on the knowledge that Racism Is Wrong...
...There are many different perspectives in any issue," director Johnson has remarked in justification of Boycott's schizophrenic visuals, "and the film represents that by allowing the viewer to observe the process from the inside and hear directly from the people involved...
...And throughout Boycott, the spoken word—fiery sermons, endless phone calls, boisterous meetings, pointed exchanges over the pool table—is the crucial medium for spreading information and disseminating values...
...Meaning comes tangled up in the visual tricks we've learned from television and film...
...the interview snippets surface and disappear too quickly...
...And by veering back and forth between cinematic styles, the film reminds us of our short attention span and our desire for unflagging visual stimulation...
...To steer clear of this hazard, director Clark Johnson and his collaborators have opted to veer back and forth between disparate filmic formats—historical footage, mock home-movie segments, imitation newsreel excerpts, wobbly documentary-style hand-held camera work, etc.—so that the audience, continually forced to process visual information, can never relax into passivity...
...One moment, for example, we are watching a full-color scene in basic feature-film mode: Parks (Iris little-Thomas) greeting friends as she walks nervously out of the county courthouse...
...they grow out of life's mundane, muddling debates, and out of feats of patience...
...Should they pose modest demands—asking, for example, for more respectful attitudes from white bus drivers—in the hope of reaching an agreement with the white authorities...
...Every scene in Boycott represents a different someCommonweal 17 March 23, 2001 one's point of view, and probably someone's prejudices...
...Even heroic vision can ripen in such circumstances...
...The visual technique emphasizes that great achievements don't spring into existence fully fledged with greatness...
...If s Negro...
...More than compensating for such overzealous photographic legerdemain is Boycott's canny depiction of the backstage maneuvering that swept the Montgomery boycott to a triumphant conclusion after 381 days...
...King visits the club in an attempt to squelch a false rumor about the boycott's demise...
...Similarly, when Boycott interposes mock interview segments—like the "Get smart and join the Klan" cameo—it is nodding to the modern tendency to think of truth as relative...
...As Martin Luther King Jr...
...Suspect what you see, too...
...We've become so accustomed to decoding photographic clues, for example, that bobbing cinema verite-type footage has become a cliche: when the camera wobbles, as it does 70 percent of the time in Boycott, we know the scene is striving for authenticity...
...In order to rally the entire black community behind the protest, while presenting a united front in negotiations with the city council, civil rights leaders had to come up with clearcut goals and strategies...
...As King begins to place the Montgomery events in the context of a broader civil rights movement, you can't but be intrigued, because his thought is evolving in a psychological place you can't quite fathom...
...Jeffrey Wright) and the others thrash such issues out in heated but meandering meetings in churches and living rooms, the camera swerves and wobbles in classic cinema verite style, effectively planting us in the thick of the bickering groups...
...As the legendary minister, whose quiet intensity when out of the pulpit differs strikingly from his thundering tones when he is in it, Wright anchors the film, hyperventilating photography and all...
...The film doesn't really voice the "many different perspectives" director Johnson has referred to...
Vol. 128 • March 2001 • No. 6
