It's easy to agree with the principle of freedom of speech. But it gets a lot harder when you're the one being yelled at for voicing an unpopular opinion. This month I look at three recent movie rentals that deal with the courage to speak up when everyone around you is telling you to shut up.
Amazing Grace
At the beginning of the 2006 film "Amazing Grace," a simple sentence appears on screen: "By the end of the 18th century, 11 million Africans had been abducted and transported into slavery to the West Indies and the Americas."
It's a horrific statistic, and it sets the stage for the story of William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian who waged a decades-long battle to abolish the slave trade in England. Opposition to Wilberforce was fierce. The slave owners, who held the majority in the House of Commons, accused him of treason because they saw him as threatening not only their livelihood, but also the very foundation of Britain's economy and might.
Director Michael Apted is able to pack enormous drama into the film. It's all the more remarkable because it doesn't pound you over the head with graphic representations of the brutality of slavery. Instead, it keeps you riveted with the battle of ideas, pitting one man's courage against the powers that be, told without sensationalism.
In spite of its title and the religious faith that drove Wilberforce, this is not an overtly religious movie. In fact, the character of John Newton (played in an almost cameo appearance by Albert Finney), who wrote the famous hymn, was an inspiration to Wilberforce but certainly not the centerpiece of the film. Still, the words of the hymn do take on added meaning when we learn that Newton had captained a slave ship for 20 years before his conversion and was haunted by the ghosts of 20,000 Africans whose deaths were on his hands.
Ioan Gruffudd plays Wilberforce as a man of laser-like conviction with occasional bouts of great doubt, a complex and sometimes reluctant hero. "Amazing Grace" inspires for all the right reasons. Its very human hero struggles mightily with his cause, but displays heroism and a moral clarity in the face of perhaps history's greatest outrage.
The Great Debaters
In the 1930s, the debate team at a small, all-black Texas college became the first to take on-and defeat-prestigious white college debate teams. Released last Christmas, "The Great Debaters" is based on the true story of Wiley College and its passionate debate coach, Melvin Tolson. It follows three students who learn not just how to debate but how to battle oppression and injustice in an era of Jim Crow segregation, brutal racism and lynchings.
Like the slave owners in "Amazing Grace," the white establishment in the segregated South used contempt, fear and intimidation to maintain the status quo. But as the students find their voice, they are emblematic of a generation of black leaders who found their voice and laid the foundation for the civil rights movement.
At the end of the picture, onscreen captions reveal what later happened to the film's three young characters. Unfortunately, we learn on the DVD that, while one is historically accurate, at least one of the other two is made up. Blurring the line between fiction and real life at that point was really unnecessary and takes away some of the impact from a film that was already powerful in its own right.
Despite that misstep, director Denzel Washington, who also plays Tolson, delivers a moving film. He pulls outstanding performances from his young cast-Denzel Whitaker, Jurnee Smollett and Nate Parker. He has crafted an elegant and powerful tribute to these pioneers who blazed a trail of justice and equality.
Shut Up and Sing
It was just an off-the-cuff comment. During a concert in London on March 10, 2003, just days before the start of the war in Iraq, lead singer Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks said, "We're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
Those 12 words unleashed a firestorm against the group- radio stations refused to play their music, fans protested and crushed CDs under steamrollers, and the band received hate mail and death threats. The 2006 documentary film, "Shut Up and Sing," directed by Barbara Kopple ("Harlan County USA") and Cecilia Peck, tells the story of the band's three-year battle to overcome the repercussions of that remark.
Fellow band members Emily Robison and Martie Maguire stick by Maines, even as her impromptu remark threatens to end not just their careers but the careers of all those associated with them. The hatred and righteous indignation directed at the Chicks is intense. In the face of the fallout, the band struggles to reinvent itself and redefine its audience.
At the time of the statement, the Chicks were advised to retract what they said. They were told the president's approval ratings were at historic highs and the war would be over soon. But four years later, a new audience rallied behind them and, in 2007, they won a Grammy for best country album, the centerpiece of which was the song, "Not Ready to Make Nice," which also won record and song of the year. Still, the band's long-term prospects are in question.
Certainly the same freedom of speech that applied to Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks also extended to those who felt betrayed by her comment. And they were perfectly within their rights to express outrage, throw away CDs and never buy another record. The hatred and death threats, on the other hand, crossed the line. That malice made the film troubling, but it was the Chicks' decision to take on the consequences of their beliefs that also made it inspiring.