Movies/TV
Denzel's 'Great' 2007 Movie
By Esther Iverem--SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic
Dec 21, 2007, 11:36

Just as director Denzel Washington offered attention and detail to the emotional lives of Black people in “Antwone Fisher,” he offers the same attention to our intellectual lives in “The Great Debaters.”

This is not a clichéd, “feel-good” story about accomplishment, not that I should have to say that. This is an awesome, heart-filled movie that takes us on a ride and riff across many boundaries in American society.

These riffs take off from a story about the 1935 debate team at the small Wiley College in Texas. The college setting and the characters—Denzel Washington as professor Mel Tolson with his students: Jurnee Smollett as Samatha, Denzel Whitaker as James and Nate Parker as Henry—provide a rare portrait of college-educated African Americans in the deep South, only 60 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, not to mention Juneteenth. It is not a stretch to say that many mature adults in these settings were the children of slaves, not if former slaves themselves, yet they had elevated themselves and widened their universe through education.

In scene after potent scene, Washington is not content to stay on campus and make this into some Negro “Paper Chase.” Rather, he riffs on all things that take us off campus: the nearby juke joint, which seems a world away with its hollering blues, grinding bodies, hard liquor and grown men fighting with razors; the chances and outcomes with new romance; the parallel universes of Black achievement and Black Southern terror; the political tenor of the times in the middle of the Great Depression and how our four main characters travel throughout it all. The collage-like opening scene, which draws in many of these themes, might remind Black film buffs of the opening of “Lackawanna Blues,” another period film that captured, in a mighty way, the complexity of Black life.

Actual and figurative journeys are a major theme in “The Great Debaters.” The film reminds us of the ways that middle class Blacks travel between economic classes, especially during this time period when the community had not been separated by integration. Similarly, as have films in the past, this film reaffirms that no Black person, no matter how far we go or no matter what we have achieved, can travel out of our skin (and nor should we want to!)

The acting performances, both individual and as an ensemble, are nothing short of great. Of course Washington and Forest Whitaker, in the role of James Farmer, Sr., turn in veteran-quality work. But I was drawn to Smollett, remembered by many as precocious Eve Baptiste in “Eve’s Bayou,” who delivers here another award-caliber performance. Similarly, Parker, who appeared in the low-budget films “Pride” and “Dirty,” delivers what is obviously a break-through performance and puts himself in-line as a young actor to watch.

With subtlety and nuance, “The Great Debaters” reminds us of the difficult transition to young adulthood and the responsibility that the mature have to the young. Usually, these stories about running the gauntlet involve sports (“Glory Road,” “Pride,” “Hurricane,” “Ali,” even “Stomp the Yard”) and, as my friend, the journalist and author Margaret Bernstein reminds me, they usually involve men. This film doesn’t leave women out of the story of Black achievement. And though its focus is on the intellect, rather than the physical, it never lets us forget the short distance between the mind and the heart.


This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com.

You can order Esther Iverem's critically praised We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or purchase at your favorite bookstore. It makes a wonderful gift! Thanks!

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