Congratulations to #12yearsaSlave BEST PICTURE, best adapted screenplay, #LupitaNyongo Best Supporting Actress and ✍writer #JohnRidley for Oscar WINS! >>>Make sure to see #12YearsaSlave! Thank you to #AtlantaBlackStar for reposting my #HuffingtonPost Article on their site. ✦✦✦Slavery on Screen: Creators of Roots Discuss 12 Years & Django with Antonio Moore✦✦✦ atlantablackstar/2013/10/27/slavery-screen-discussion-creators-roots-12-years-django/ Slavery on Screen: Creators of Roots Discuss 12 Years & Django -- Excerpt: As a filmmaker, when dealing with a topic as sensitive as slavery, the first responsibility is to be accurate. Not so much true, because much in the storytelling of a period piece is fictionalized, but at least accurate to the time period’s customs. These comments come in the context of statements Director Quentin Tarantino stated to Newsweek in the article “Quentin Tarantino on Django Unchained and the Problem with Roots.” “Hollywood didn’t want to deal with it because it was too ugly and too messy,” Tarantino recently told The Daily Beast: “But how can you ignore such a huge part of American history when telling a story in that time period? It made no sense. When you look at Roots, nothing about it rings true in the storytelling, and none of the performances ring true for me either. I couldn’t get over how oversimplified they made everything about that time. It didn’t move me because it claimed to be something it wasn’t. — Quentin Tarantino. “One thing both men, Tarantino and Hudlin, agreed on was a scene in Roots that served as an example of what not to do in Django Unchained. The last act of the final episode features the character Chicken George being given the opportunity to beat his slave master and owner in much the same way he’d been punished and tormented. In the end the character chooses not to so he can be ‘the bigger man.’ ‘Bulls–t,’ exclaim both Tarantino and Hudlin in unison as they discuss the absurdity of the scene. ‘No way he becomes the bigger man at that moment,’ — Newsweek “Quentin Tarantino on “Django Unchained and the Problem with Roots” In an exclusive first response to the comments Wolper states: “I respect Tarantino as a filmmaker, but his statements are like a backseat driver 30 years later after a lot of change. To say nothing rings true shows a clear lack of understanding of where the country was socially at the time Roots aired. When the series came on TV it was like nothing the country had seen to that point. We have come so far since Roots hit our televisions in 1977, current expanded outlets and social mindsets allow stories on the topic to dig deeper naturally. If Roots came on today, it wouldn’t be timely as shot. A show that’s over 30 years old with the amount of change this country has seen couldn’t be up to date. But as TV evolved it allowed for changes in relaying history in shows that just wasn’t allowed in the late ’70s. This is particularly true for issues of race, as the country adjusted to new laws. Looking more specifically at Django it was a fictional spaghetti western that lacked the context of relationships, layout of history and critical acclaim of our series Roots. “Lastly, be factually accurate when critically evaluating TV and film history because it was Tom, Chicken George’s son that was given a chance to whip a white man at the end of the series. The man was not his master. It was a chance instead to whip a white man that had whipped him prior for trying to leave without paying a bill that was unfairly claimed to be due. Tom was at that point a sharecropper with no master. This was a mark of an evolving relationship between blacks and whites after slavery, and a changing environment after the Emancipation Proclamation. That is very different than not whipping your master if given a chance.” This is what happens when you take liberties in telling history; your liberties can destroy the historical context for the storyline. By adding color to accentuate what you as the filmmaker feel should have happened, you can do damage to the nuances of emotion, experience and life that prevented it from happening at the time. The institution that was slavery, was suffocating for the individual, leaving them not just with a feeling of being powerless, but often actually without power to do anything except survive a lifetime of subjugation. Where in reference to Roots, Tarantino stated, “none of the performances ring true.” My opinion is Lou Gossett Jr.’s Emmy Award-winning performance as Fiddler was one of the most powerful dramatic roles in television history. This role along with several others in the saga exposed America to the layers of black life during this time, showing that the depth of a character’s love, confusion and values extended much further than simply their status as a house or a field slave. As stated prior, the recently released “12 Years a Slave” took a much more historically accurate view of the institution of slavery. Raw, brutal and real is how I describe it after a viewing of the film. Director Steve McQueen held no punches in detailing the atrocity of slavery. The story of Solomon Northup was captured in a detail that caught the nuance of acceptance slaves were forced to endure. Several shots were made intentionally long, forcing the viewer to sit uncomfortably and grasp how long a painful moment can stretch.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:03:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015