'Judas and the Black Messiah' should win Best Picture. Here's why:
'Judas and the Black Messiah' should win Best Picture. Here's why:
#118: "Judas and the Black Messiah," "Il Maestro," "8 1/2," "Nashville," "Steve Jobs"
Edition 118:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: A super packed slate, starting with my pick for Best Picture: Judas and the Black Messiah. Then a dispatch from cinema’s guardian angel, Martin Scorcese, and a plug for Il Maestro’s masterpiece. For streaming suggestions we look back on the career of Shelley Duval, and I rediscover the modern day equivalent to Citizen Kane. In this week’s Trailer Watch, it’s a red-hot documentary about one of Hollywood’s most scandalous marriages.
Judas and the Black Messiah
(HBO Max)
Judas and the Black Messiah should win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It’s as simple as that.
Director Shaka King’s sidedoor biopic of the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton is powerful, both in what it is and what it represents. That second qualifier in particular is important, because the Oscars have always valued narrative over merit, and the movie upon which the Academy bestows its highest honor is held up as the shining symbol to represent the entire industry over the past year.
It’s fair to look at the whole awards complex as masturbatory, but if the industry is going to pretend to be self-righteous for a night the Academy couldn’t do much better than this celebration of black empowerment, following the summer of George Floyd-inspired reckoning.
Still, the list of movies over the past year attempting to make grand statements about race relations in this country is long. The reason why this movie earns the mantle is because it trojan-horses its big ideas into a genuine thriller, prioritizing plot over politics, story over statement.
That could be seen, cynically, as a concession. One might claim that the cat and mouse chase, the gun fights and the antagonizing of a black Judas over the white authorities who controlled him are all used to make the movie palatable to white audiences (as opposed to something like BlacKkKlansman).
That may be true, to an extent (and let me tell you, to this white viewer, it worked). After all, it’s sort of a miracle that this movie exists. There’s a reason why Black Panther figures have not been featured in mainstream movies to this point — or, even more revealing, that their only inclusion is the cartoonish portrayal in Forest Gump.
King has said in many interviews that he struggled to secure financing for the movie, even after attaching executive producer Ryan Coogler (a powerhouse director) and lead actors Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield (rising movie stars). It’s difficult to come up with a reason why for that which does not include racial bias.
But King himself would not classify these story elements as concessions. He initially pitched the movie as “The Departed inside the world of Cointelpro” (the name for J. Edgar Hoover’s covert operation against liberal and black activists), and much of that DNA still exists in the final version.
The movie’s protagonist is Bill O’Neal, a car thief coerced by the FBI into infiltrating and spying on the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. There he befriends Hampton, the chapter’s chairman, and gets sucked in by the gravitational pull of Hampton’s other worldly charisma.
Hampton’s messages serve less as soap box sermons and more as acts of character building. Over the course of the movie the invincible facade of the leader is stripped away and we’re left with a very human individual, a boyfriend and father and friend. O’Neal’s wavering loyalties likewise construct a complex portrait of him as a person, making the pair’s ultimate confrontation almost Shakespearean in its tragedy.
All of which is to say, it’s a really well constructed story. It’s exciting and intriguing, filled with tension and also comedy, heroism and cowardice. On a technical level, the camera control and staging is crisp and purposeful, with moments of flash and sizzle. King has revealed himself to be a top tier talent.
The movie is then elevated from good to exceptional by unbelievable acting performances. Stanfield shoulders the bulk of the plot in his usual interesting and nuanced way, leaving room for Kaluuya’s Hampton to erupt off the screen as an absolute force of nature. Kaluuya is the rarest of combinations, an incredible actor with mega star charisma, and here he’s at the top of his game. His speeches as Hampton enter the lexicon of modern cinema history instantly, and if he’s not rewarded with a Best Supporting Oscar in April, we riot. Also, it would be unjust not to mention strong support performances from Jesse Plemens, Martin Sheen and Dominique Fishback.
And along the way, yes, the political messages seep through. “Kill a little pig, get a little satisfaction,” isn’t exactly subtle. But the power of the movie is that it serves as both an immersive experience producing empathy for those who could never agree with the call to arms, and a loud beating drum for those who would support it wholeheartedly.
The message of the movie is not safe. It’s not sugar coated. It’s not status quo.
Which is exactly the reason why I’m making it my crusade to campaign for this movie and against The Trial of the Chicago 7 for the Oscars. It’s a good movie! And I love Sorkin! But after seeing Judas and the Black Messiah (or Mangrove, for that matter), Sorkin’s well-meaning-white-folks movie is exposed as phony.
“This is what real revolution looks like,” says Sacha Baron Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman to a room full of college-educated white guys during one scene in Chicago 7. The movie ends with swelling strings playing underneath a fictionalized closing statement in which a future senator finally finds the courage to read out the names of people who have died thousands of miles away in Vietnam.
“You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill a revolution,” says Kaluuya’s Hampton in Judas, to an auditorium filled with black, Puerto Rican, and white men and women, many of whom will themselves lose their lives for the cause.
I’ll let you decide which of those messages should be rewarded by Hollywood’s annual virtue signaling ceremony.
Nominations are announced on March 15th. We’ll see what happens.
Something New
Il Maestro (Harper’s Magazine): Ok, ok, so this isn’t a movie. But this essay penned by Martin Scorcese — who in recent years has knighted himself as the Defender of the Realm of cinema — begins with one of the most clear-headed assessments of the movie industry in 2021. I’m just going to print it in full:
Flash forward to the present day, as the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator, “content.”
As recently as fifteen years ago, the term “content” was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against “form.” Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should. “Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It was linked, of course, not to the theatrical experience but to home viewing, on the streaming platforms that have come to overtake the moviegoing experience, just as Amazon overtook physical stores. On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t. If further viewing is “suggested” by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema?
Curating isn’t undemocratic or “elitist,” a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity—you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. (The best streaming platforms, such as the Criterion Channel and MUBI and traditional outlets such as TCM, are based on curating—they’re actually curated.) Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.
Curating, my dear friends, is what I hope this newsletter does for you all. And though I don’t hold “cinema” quite as sacred as Scorcese (my love of trashy rom-coms and late night comedies is well documented), the need for someone to highlight the difference between cinema and content is growing increasingly vital. As I always tell people, once you’re exposed to the real genuine art form, whether it’s Fellini or Scorcese or shoot, even Shaka King now, you’ll lose a taste for the assembly line crap very quickly.
Something Old
8 1/2 (1963): Scorcese’s essay is actually mostly about Italian legend Frederico Fellini. And I’d agree with Scorcese’s assessment that Fellini’s masterpiece 8 1/2 (and other Italian classics) can be “disorienting,” primarily because all of the dialogue audio is dubbed. But in the context of this movie, which takes place in a dream-like malaise, it actually serves as a storytelling asset. The protagonist, a famous director, struggles with writer’s (or director’s) block, which sends him into a spiral toward a reckoning with his past. This plays out in a wandering, abstract work of high art that is appreciated only as much as you engage with it. In other words, it’s not one of those movies you throw on for a diversionary Friday night. Scorcese says writer Gore Vidal once told Fellini, “Fred, less dreams next time, you must tell a story.” But if you’re ready, read Scorcese’s praise in Harper’s to appreciate the masterpiece that the movie truly can be.
Nashville (1975): As long as we’re talking about great reads, the Hollywood Reporter tracked down the reclusive Shelley Duval and gave her the full profile treatment this week. Duval was an ascendant star in the 1970s, but was never the same after her experience on the set of The Shining, where director Stanley Kubrick seemingly drove her to real-life insanity in order to draw out her performance as Wendy Torrance. In the 90s she left Hollywood for good, only reappearing in the public eye during a Dr. Phil segment that seemed to relish in her apparent mental illness. She hadn’t been heard from since, and no one knew where she was or if she was okay. This profile reclaims the brilliance of her career.
So yeah, go watch or rewatch The Shining. But that’s obvious. The person who deserves a ton of credit for discovering and platforming Duvall is director Robert Altman, who featured her in several of his movies throughout the 70s. The best of these is Nashville, a nearly three-hour ensemble slice-of-life that paints of portrait of fame, greed and America in the country music mecca. Altman was the predecessor to Richard Linklater, so if you’re a fan of vibe-first movies like Dazed and Confused or Everybody Wants Some!! you’ll probably like this too.
Something to Stream
Steve Jobs (Netflix): Earlier this year I read a book that used the massive Sony hack of 2014 to take a behind-the-scenes look at the Sony movie studio throughout the 21st Century. And one of the things that struck me was how reverentially executives and producers across the industry spoke about this particular movie during its production process. They called it “the next Citizen Kane,” and at one point David Fincher was set to direct with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role beside Scarlett Johansson. They “settled” for Danny Boyle directing and Michael Fassbender starring with Kate Winslett and Seth Rogan, to keep costs down, and the movie ended up tanking at the box office. See, said studio overlords, this is what happens when you think with the heart instead of the head (or more accurately the pocket book).
I saw the movie in theaters and was totally thrown by how irregular it was, taking place only in the moments before or after scenes that would be shown in a traditional biopic. But upon my rewatch this week I saw it for what it really is, which is nothing less than a modern day Citizen Kane, a brilliantly tragic character study of the Great Man myth. Much like The Social Network, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s razor sharp writing blends fact and dramatization to create an experience that feels more revealing than straight documentary. I loved it. (And see, I told you guys I love Sorkin.)
Trailer Watch: Allen v. Farrow
This was a big week for utterly ridiculous trailers. We got our first look at Emma Stone playing Cruella de Vil in a live action prequel to 101 Dalmatians (LOL), and a first glimpse at a Mortal Kombat reboot which, in my opinion, has a coked-out-Jean-Claude-Van-Damme-sized hole in it. I doubt I’ll ever get around to seeing the full movies to those two.
However, a new HBO documentary outlining the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow scandal will be appointment viewing for me this week. I have a soft spot for Allen’s movies, which in recent years has felt more like a guilty pleasure due to this ongoing scandal that is surrounding him. Prominent figures have come out in support of both sides. So my biggest question going in will be how even-handed (or not) the documentary presents the material. It’s clear from the trailer that Farrow sat for an interview and Allen did not, and though I don’t need total symmetry in viewpoints, I hope they make a good faith effort to present both sides and let the viewer come to their own conclusions. Can’t wait to discuss it with you all.