Two great dramas to close out Black History Month.
Till (2022; Rent on Amazon Prime)
The true story of how Mamie Till carried on after her son Emmet was kidnapped during a visit to relatives in Mississippi. I saw this movie on a library shelf last month. I had somehow caught a trailer a few years back, and I had wanted to check it out. I’m glad I did. Having heard the story of Emmet Till, I was curious how they would handle it, and I was pleased by how historically accurate it was. I love a good period piece: the movie is set in the 1950s, from the cars to the clothes to the music. It is honest in its portrayal of interracial interactions in that time period, and it tells the story with a great deal of nuance. Not everyone agrees with Mamie’s decisions, and she has no perfect answer.
This story of violent injustice is presented with a lot of heart. I could write several pages about why I like the writing, the music, and the intentional cinematography. How it takes its time in the right places and takes surprising turns. How it deals honestly with an unfathomable depth of emotion, and then somehow builds you back up without cheapening the pain. How it makes room for genuine Christian faith in its characters. Given its own history, “It Is Well with My Soul” is the right song for that scene.
None other than Emmet Till was on the mind of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus just months after the events of this film. Amazingly, the movie does not mention this. It doesn’t make its story into something else, say, a catalyst for historical triumph, nor the opposite. Amidst all the surrounding history, the film tells Emmet’s story, and his mother’s. With mind and heart.
For sensitive viewers: Scenes of deep mourning, racial slurs, implied violence, and a disturbing image.
In This Our Life (1942; Rent on YouTube Movies & TV, Amazon Prime, or Google Play—or borrow from my parents’ DVD library)
Stanley, a spoiled young woman (Bette Davis), steals her sister’s (Olivia de Havilland) fiancé, and the sister finds a way forward while Stanley destroys herself and everyone around her. This may not sound like a fun movie, but Bette Davis makes it fun. The producers didn’t like her over-the-top acting, but she argued that this was the only way to play this character, and John Huston let her. Add to these stars names like George Brent (who always plays kindly beaus), Charles Coburn, Billie Burke (“Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”), and Hattie McDaniel. McDaniel is best known for her role as the black maid in Gone with the Wind, for which she won the first Oscar awarded to an African American actor. She said that she would rather play a maid than be one. But in this rare movie, she gets to do a little more than that.
So it’s intense, but it’s worth your time. Great cinematography. And as early as the first shot, you may divine that it’s going somewhere meaningful.
For sensitive viewers: A drunken husband slaps his wife. Romantic tension. It is implied that a character commits suicide, totally off-screen.
Nathan’s Writing Update
I just uploaded a new movie music video to my YouTube channel! It’s Inside Out 2 again, for the last time: the whole movie in under 5 minutes, set to every song from Paul and Linda McCartney’s Wings at the Speed of Sound. This 1976 album (50 years!) featured the hits “Let ‘Em In” and “Silly Love Songs.” Just for fun.