COLUMN: Sundance taught on many levels
As I ventured into the dark press screening rooms at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, I sat with other journalists from around the country and wondered what the hell I was doing there. The answer: I was there to learn and to be taught on many different levels.
“The Murder of Emmett Till” is a documentary directed by Stanley Nelson about a 14-year-old African American boy who, during the summer of 1955, kissed his mother goodbye at a Chicago train station to visit relatives in the town of Money, Miss. He never saw her again.
The documentary used stark footage to retell the story of how young Emmett was taken in the middle of the night, pistol whipped, shot and then dumped in the Tallahatchie River with a heavy fan tied to his neck by barbed wire; all for supposedly whistling at the wife of a white local store owner.
Upon receiving her son’s mutilated body back in Chicago, Mamie Till chose to put his body on display, and thousands of people came to see it. When photos of Emmitt’s body were published in “Jet” magazine, the case drew national attention.
Till’s assailants, the store owner and his brother, were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury after less than an hour of deliberating. Later, the two brothers blatantly confessed to the crime in a published article they sold to a national magazine.
The documentary points out that Emmett Till’s death was so deeply riveting, many believed it was the spark that began the civil rights movement in the United States. One hundred days after the discovery of his body, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.
This is a film that is hard, even exhausting to watch, but should be viewed by anyone who thinks that the civil rights movement was just about segregation and voting rights. It was about living and no longer having to live in fear.
“The Shape of Things” follows the transformation of Adam (Paul Rudd) from a hopeless social introvert to a good-looking, dreamy man. Adam owes his newfound perspective on life to his also newfound girlfriend Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), who is outspoken, outgoing and slightly neurotic.
During his journey, Adam loses weight, cuts his hair, changes the way he dresses and even undergoes plastic surgery as he trudges deeper and deeper into a world he’s never known and soon finds himself having to reset his moral compass with each new decision he is forced to make. By the end of the film, Adam is so far removed from his old existence that it is unclear if he can return to it, even if he chooses to.
Writer and director Neil LaBute brings to life this funny, yet honest story about love and the decisions one makes for love and the good and bad consequences that follow those decisions.
This film is good on many levels, but mostly because of its evolving, character-driven plot and brutally honest dialogue, which allows its viewers to intimately connect with the characters by sharing both their emotional highs and their deepest and saddest lows.
This is the type of movie that is so rarely found in Hollywood, a movie that relies less on special effects and star glitter and more on the audience’s sense of love and humanity.
Bryce Casselman is a senior majoring in public relations. Comments can be sent to yanobi@hotmail.com.