By Margaret Hicks
Staff Writer
mhicks@theoklahomaeagle.net
With Sandra Stokes, Intern
The film DETROIT, documenting one of America’s most shameful moments, will debut at Circle Cinema in Tulsa, Oklahoma and nationwide in theaters on Friday, August 4. 2017. It chronicles the 1967 Detroit riot, which Professor Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown University, a Detroit native calls a “rebellion”. Local police brutality was its cause. At lease 43 people were killed. The film debuted at the Fox Theater in Detroit on July 25, 2017.
Credits
DETROIT, an Annapurna Pictures film, was written by Mark Boal and Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, an Academy Award winner. According to Bigelow, “If the purpose of art is to agitate for change, if we are truly ready to start addressing the inequity of race in this country, we need to be willing to listen. I hope this film will encourage some small part of that dialogue, and we find a way to heal the wounds that have existed for far too long in this country.”
Angela Jade Bastién, an African American critic and essayist, had this to say about the production: “Watching DETROIT I realized that I’m not interested in white perceptions of black pain. I was disturbed so deeply by what I witnessed that I left the theater afterward in tears.”
Movie Review
Sandra Stokes, a guest writer for The Oklahoma Eagle and a Detroit native, had this to say about the film: “Being born in Detroit, I consider it my home and was very eager to see this movie in hopes of getting clarification to what many of us knew back then was “fishy.”
In 1967, I was in nearby Gary, Indiana, and lived through the media coverage and personal accounts of friends and family members concerning the “riots.” In 1969, I returned to live in Detroit and experienced a great deal of aftermath.
Since it was more than 50 years ago, I entered the theatre to see DETROIT with great expectations to find out what really happened back then; the truth.
This film struck me more like a hodge-podge of scenes from the era strung together in no particularly relevant manner. Basically, it rehashed many of the confusing, senseless, suspicious, facts about the events that took place back then without providing any closure or solutions.
I left the theatre with very low spirits almost bordering on hopelessness on many levels. To those of us who lived through it, this film just displays another “guess” at another “possibility” and painfully reopens old wounds. To those to whom this is all new, it teaches them nothing new, just scene after scene of graphic, senseless violence.”
Holding Up the Past as A Mirror
The filmmakers had the following to say: “Any similarities to the nation’s present-day discussion of institutional racism and the events depicted in DETROIT was purely intentional.
‘I think this is an important story to tell,” says producer/screenwriter Boal, “because one of the values of looking at the past is that it enables you to look at the present from another perspective. And to ask questions such as ‘how much has changed?’ And ‘how much has not changed?’”
The events of summer 1967 in Detroit and other major American cities “were not a unique moment in time,” Boal continues. “They were part of a continuum. And to the extent that we are made aware of that continuum, maybe we can be more thoughtful about it.”
The principal cast in DETROIT came away with their own take on the film. “I was very proud to work with filmmakers who are seeking to do more than simply entertain with their work, who are trying to raise awareness of real-life issues and problems in society,” says Will Poulter. “In order for us to move forward, it’s vitally important that the media and art highlight these issues.”
“When the movie ended, I wasn’t sure how I felt,” admits Algee Smith. “On the one hand, I felt happy to be a part of this important story. On the other, I felt sorrow for what the actual people had to go through and angry because of the injustice that followed.
Let’s just say I was confused, though ultimately I felt immense gratitude that this story was told.”
