ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI (2020)
Actor extraordinaire turned director Regina King avoids the formalities of a biographical presentation, down to the constraints of dynamic spacing and a roster of supporting speaking parts, to hone ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI as a character study of four legends. Fictionalizing a meeting among them in real life, back in the turbulent 1960s, liberates King to show us how the march of civilization is contingent not only with our past but on the present, more than anything else.
Mostly confined to a motel room and consisting of verbal fireworks among the likes of MALCOLM X(KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR), SAM COOKE(LESLIE ODOM JR.), CASSIUS CLAY (ELI GOREE) and JIM BROWN(ALDIS HODGE), this Kemp Powers written screenplay (adapted from his own play) is, of course, reliant on the power of words. The power of words here is to interrogate America's history of racism and how deftly personal ideologies get integrated with socio-political grounding in facts and unchanging realities. Each a formidable force to be reckoned with in his respective field, from sports to entertainment and most importantly civil rights, together they plunge into the deepest trenches of what makes them stand out and still be vulnerable to racial fiats.
The intense exchanges between Malcolm and Sam especially stir our conscience so that the verbosity of this script doesn't just remain a central conceit to grab attention. I remember my father being silent and fixedly attentive throughout these passages. Also give both Leslie and Kingsley all the plaudits there are for being so true to the personalities they portray based on their body language and effortless embodiment alone, coming from a place of pure instinct and contemporary relevance.
ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI is a celebration of BLACK HISTORY but is very particular about the complexities of that term as it affects us in the here and now. It hones in on the ennui and unexpected outcomes of this one night, to capture the highs and lows of being men of colour in powerful positions and reckoning with that double edged reality each day.
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VIOLA DAVIS is, to me, the ultimate purveyor of stifled emotions and internalized pain, drawing us in to the racial forbears behind those feelings ever so competently, like she knows that being authentic in her own skin is a mirror to the lives of those who get to be seen and heard through her subtle artistry.
In WIDOWS(2018), she is witness to an amoral landscape of male hegemony in modern day Chicago, a city with class consciousness engraved everywhere, be it on high rises, ghettos or private apartment rooms. Profiteers(exemplified by the presence of DANIEL KALUUYA, BRIAN TYREE, COLIN FARRELL and ROBERT DUVALL) are on every stretch of this cityscape and the titular protagonists' husbands' deaths come in the crossfire of all it stands for. Davis opens up her heart and soul to tug at the depths of her son's loss at the hands of police shooting him dead in broad daylight, being in a position of debt to threatening men and having a husband (Liam Neeson) who maintains a double life with another wife(Carrie Coon) and infant son.
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A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .
Non-FictionI have often wondered about the very curdled natures of our opinions so much so that the perch of imagination simply becomes a bystanding abstraction and real thoughts of genuine merit slip between the fingers. That is a human tendency, to beat arou...
