“Nobody believes them until someone else says it.” Readers encounter this sentiment early on. nickel boyColson Whitehead’s award-winning 2019 novel soon after unearths its bloody history. A secret cemetery has been discovered on the grounds of a dilapidated former reform school named Nickel in the book’s title. which has been allocated to be transformed into a corporate office park. Instead, buyers must contend with this set of secrets. The bodies were buried in unmarked graves. which is the body of a nickel survivor Just like real-life survivors of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida (which is the foundation of Whitehead’s project) know it’s been there for a long time.
History is strange in that way. Memory, which is a record in its own right, is not enough for some people. They want evidence broken skull and ribs full of bullets It doesn’t matter that we’ve already been informed that the corpses actually exist. and lived experiences, in Dozier’s case, of institutionalized violence. Destructive labor sexual harassment and murder That happened from the school’s opening in 1900 until it closed in 2011—it really happened. Surprisingly, dead people speak louder than living people. Their bodies, although newly discovered, are still incomplete. It’s what makes a survivor’s story real.
Ramel Ross Nickel Boyswhich is adapted from Whitehead’s novel. Again, the opening scene of the book’s archaeological discovery is not mentioned. But the film chooses to jump directly into the story of the young man living at Nickel. His film shares and complements the novel’s commitment to excavation. But instead of the plain language of Whitehead’s novels and the shovels that pierce the ground in real life, Ross liked the picture. The picture is his shovel.
One of the foundations of contemporary cultural representation is the idea of seeing oneself on screen. But Ross’s work aims for something stronger than filling the screen with black bodies and stories. His first feature film was in 2018. Hale County This Morning This EveningIt opens with a title card announcing that the film has grown from a simple photography project about his daily life in Alabama to a follow-up film. “How We Are Seen,” a documentary that unfolds smoothly By abandoning various scenes to impress It works by linking together. The present tense of working-class black people in Alabama is interspersed with images from the archives: film clips, ephemera, the loss of historical lives. We saw a basketball game. People hanging out in the living room See a home without a beautiful beginning or end.
Taking this into account nickel boy It seemed like an odd project to take on, especially for Ross’s first foray into fiction filmmaking. The important topics in Whitehead’s novel seem to demand a straightforward account. It’s the type that proclaims respect for the material through impressively unvarnished performances. Functional attention to temporal attachment. The story’s tasteful approach to violence, however, if you’ve heard anything about Ross’s films before. You’ve probably heard about the defining theme of its visual style. which might draw you in pull you far away Or perhaps basically A little bit of both. In general. The film stays true to Whitehead’s story. But unlike the novel, it is told from a first-person perspective. This is one of the most important qualities of this approach. We experience the worlds of the two main characters, Elwood and Turner, as if we were their characters. Not like a video game But without the flashiness that might be hinted at.
Elwood (played by Ethan Herris) is a 17-year-old outstanding student who lives with his grandmother Hattie (the amazing Anjanu Ellis-Taylor). In Tallahassee in the 1960s, he followed a straight path: when Elwood got in trouble with the police, He was on his way to a nearby Black college to enroll in free classes for promising high school students. His mistake was riding with a man driving a stolen car. when they were pulled over and arrested Elwood is also punished by the syndicate and sent to the Nickel Academy, a segregated institution that will strip him of his freedom and turn him into a cog in the state machine. Elwood faced the usual rigors of prisons and reform schools. Including bullying, teasing, discipline, and harassment. His saving grace was the friends he made. A young man from Houston named Turner (Brandon Wilson) does his best to show Elwood the ropes. And ignore the worst of what Nickel gave him.
Whitehead said Elwood and Turner represent two parts of him. An idealist (Elwood) and a cynic. (Turner) whose interrelated views inform his views on race as a black man making sense of contemporary America. Elwood is the product of the belief that Jim Crowe appeals to black Americans In order to survive Live life on the straight and narrow. As shown in Ross’s film He is less adamant in his ideology than Elwood in the book. But the foundational content of his beliefs—especially his fervent admiration for Martin Luther King Jr.—remains. Nickel Boy should not be used like a slave. Elwood tried to argue. Because it’s illegal He responded to injustice with indignation: “How could they do that?” Turner had no faith in the law as written. He knows that what matters is what is enforced.
almost all Nickel Boys Played from the direct perspective of Elwood and Turner. Sometimes it was a fight between two boys in the same scene. Viewers look as they look. see what they see It’s hard to refute a life that feels so real. We are looking through a pair of eyes absorbing the details like someone reaching for them to remember them. Whether it is the pain Hattie expresses as she recounts the story of her father’s confrontation with uncertain injustice; or a double image of a young girl A man watches King’s televised speech through a store window. and saw himself as linked to the ideals of justice and peace. Memories live in feelings
This movie is undoubtedly emotional and Nickel Boys It’s an ongoing trend in black independent filmmaking to push the sentiment forward—moonlight It’s the most obvious example of Beyoncé. lemon juice It appears the most and is the same movie as last year. All dirt roads taste of saltwhich was shot by Nickel Boys‘ Cinematographer Jomo Fray, who is most similar. Screenshots taken Can be retweeted And the frequent imitations of this aesthetically rich style arouse suspicion in some corners. Which is a re-reading of the usual arguments about style vs. content. And in fact The conversations I’ve had until now Nickel Boys full of caution And they disagree about whether the idea of central vision and confronting beauty really “works.”
The secret to POV filmmaking is that it tricks us into thinking we’re seeing everything the characters see. with the same level of detail and focus on the same images, but Nickel BoysThe subtle choice is to abandon this method from time to time. Some of the film’s scenes are intimate. In the same way as the personal perspective scene. But separated artistically A scene in which a group of boys are taken from their beds in the middle of the night and taken to a hut where they are beaten is clearly seen through Elwood’s eyes in the first episode. Instead, the camera focused on the other boys’ tremors. As they waited for them to be attacked. And this scene is interspersed with close-ups. Above all else is the Bible. When Elwood was led into the room We flew behind him. When the violence begins Ross immediately turned his attention to history.
Among the sounds of Elwood being abused Our gaze meets the gaze of an unknown man we don’t recognize—a man from a damaged real-life photo of the Dozier school, zoomed in so much that his face is deformed beyond recognition. This scene is a memory. That becomes more apparent as the film progresses into the present. In the third person perspective, over the shoulder of a remembering adult Elwood. But during that time These various perspectives Both Elwood were beaten. A haunted face from a photograph The man who turned all of this on his head. has been made different only to be stitched back together as the film progresses.
Whitehead began writing the book. , his Pulitzer Prize-winning sequel. subwayAfter the election of Donald Trump in 2016, when It seems urgent. Providing his “understanding of where we are as a country,” Ross’s film seems to insist that this is where we are: inevitably mixed up in historical violence. Instead, we focus on points in our history that are unrecognizable.
when Nickel Boys It’s over, something has changed. I was careful to reveal twists and turns that were the same as in the book. But a different effect was obtained from this film. Suffice it to say that it brings us back to the question that Whitehead’s novels have always raised. There is history as we tell it. Then there is the content, the evidence, the archives, whatever makes these stories tellable. Ross’s film is a bold attempt to explode that difference. After all, history suddenly became true. Not just because we dug up the corpse. but because we live in His hands
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