Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Race in America
'Cold Mountain' freezes out black history in Civil War
Erik Todd Dellums
Sunday, January 4, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
I am an African American, professional actor, semiotician and film lover. I am, therefore, underemployed, underappreciated and an afterthought in Hollywood. I am also a man who rarely sees an accurate depiction of black people and American history in film and on television. It's something I've grown used to, but now I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!
All people who truly care about honest representations of American history in Hollywood should boycott the heavily promoted "Cold Mountain." At a cost of $80-plus million and sporting a stellar cast and crew, this film adaptation of Charles Frazier's acclaimed best-seller opened Christmas Day and is being touted as the film to beat at the Academy Awards. It has generated glowing reviews for Disney, Miramax and all involved.
It is also a sham, a slap in the face of African Americans whose ancestors gave their lives in the Civil War, fighting for true freedom (take that, President Bush) from the most heinous form of slavery known to modern man: the American slavery system. How could a three-hour film depicting life in the heart of Virginia and North Carolina during the Civil War use only momentary shots of black people picking cotton and a few black actors portraying runaway slaves as its total picture of slavery during this period?
In an article in the Washington Post, the film-makers have said that slavery and racism were simply "too raw" an emotional issue to present in their film. In other words, who would want to see a love story with the beautiful Jude Law and Nicole Kidman set in the reality of the Southern monstrosity of slavery?
Posted by P6 at January 5, 2004 05:57 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2740I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the book. Slavery, simply, was not essential to its plot. To suggest that a book's adaption to film must need touch on the overarching social, political, or cultural realities of the times portrayed is silly.
It's really a criticism of the book actually. Imagine reading a book about Germany during WWII and seeing barely a peep about the Holocaust and Jews. I seriously doubt there wouldn't be a brouhaha about a film adaption of such a work. And no film-maker would dare justify such erasure.
Ronn: I think you're way off base in that criticism.
By no means am I a well read person. But, along with 'Cold Mountain', I've also read 'War And Peace'. As I remember it, Tolstoy's great saga virtually ignored the great sufferings of the Russian peasantry, save the old peasant who well-taught Pierre when both were prisoners of the French. That book, of course, was told from the perspective of a aristocrat. Yet, and indisputably, it managed to convey an unadulterated, uncompromised sense of humanity.
The story you wish the movie told needs be re-told, forever. It needs be told a million different ways, by a million different voices. But 'Cold Mountain' is its own story. There's plenty of room for them all.
SE: Your criticism doesn't surprise me. Neither does your indifference, nor tone. Of course, I'm biased seeing that my family suffered the indignities of enslavement and it's always readily excused, ignored and minimalized.
How the book, and by extension, the movie can ignore the impetus for the very war depicted, is still beyond me. The film-makers could have said we simply followed the book. Instead, they basically said we didn't want to distract from a love story. Pathetic.