Cinematic dramatizations of historic events often, if not always, evoke questions about historical accuracy. That has certainly been true of Selma. Given that the film deals with recent history, and with a great American hero, and with issues that are still live political passions, perhaps we should expect that its history would receive more scrutiny.
Since I am the third Reel Spirituality critic to look at Selma after Gary Ingle and Elijah Davidson, I am going to use this opportunity to comment on this question of historicity and interpretation. Regarding the film as a film, I think it’s excellent, one of the best of the last year. David Oyelowo’s achieves an incredible impersonation of Martin Luther King, Jr., though his performance goes far deeper than that. Watching him, particularly when he preaches, one understands how King inspired such a following.
But before I had even seen the film, I had already read a couple takes on the history of the film on The New Republic website. Jesse McCarthy writes that Selma unfairly and dishonestly removes radical politics from the story of the civil rights movement in order to be more palatable to Hollywood. Elaine Teng, on the other hand, argues that fact-checking films has gone too far; “Writing about movies as if they are merely compilations of facts sets up an unproductive, flawed standard of criticism. It suggests that ‘inaccurate’ equals ‘bad.’”
I find myself agreeing much more with Teng – films that don’t purport to be documentaries should be judged primarily on artistry and aesthetics, with historical accuracy as a secondary concern. But that’s not my main issue with McCarthy’s review. He accuses Selma and its director, Ava DuVernay, of perpetuating a misreading of the civil rights movement. Rather than crediting young radicals, Selma “perceives the civil rights struggle through the lens of individual dignity and negotiation, as opposed to collective urgency and direct action.” The film presents King as the great leader, ignoring the heroic commitment of all the less-famous members of the movement.
The criticism is misplaced. Selma includes a great deal of “collective urgency and direct action,” especially in the moving scenes of clergy from all over America coming to Alabama to march with King. I think perhaps that is the underlying issue here: the collective action is taken by clergy rather than radical students. In fact, King and almost all the leaders we see him with are pastors. Their faith inspires their actions. I am no expert on the civil rights movement, but Selma dovetails perfectly with the history Charles Marsh tells in The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, From the Civil Rights Movement to Today. He says that “too often historians and scholars have recast the civil rights movement as a secular movement that used religion to its advantage” (4) when, in truth, Christian faith drove and sustained the movement. That’s the civil rights story that DuVernay and Oyelowo tell. McCarthy is looking for a different civil rights movie.
And the filmmakers’ choice to tell this version of the civil rights story adds to the film’s urgency. Nearly every critic and commentator on Selma has mentioned its timeliness. Ferguson colors the lens through which we watch this story of racial tension, violence and reconciliation. But, it seems to me, the modern protest movement is more a child of the secular groups McCarthy writes about – he says as much in his review – than of King’s clergy-led movement. But what if the clergy of America today responded as they did in the 60s? Selma offers a compelling picture of what could happen.
You might also find these reviews of Selma helpful:
Christianity Today
Doc Hollywood
Hollywood Jesus
Larsen on Film
Looking Closer
Sister Rose at the Movies