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      Cicely Tyson, an Actress Who Shattered Stereotypes, Dies at 96

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCicely Tyson, an Actress Who Shattered Stereotypes, Dies at 96In a remarkable career of many decades, she refused to take parts that demeaned Black people and won a Tony, Emmys and an honorary Oscar.Cicely Tyson in London in 1973. She was critical of films and television programs that cast Black characters as criminal, servile or immoral.Credit…Dennis Oulds/Central Press, via Getty ImagesJan. 28, 2021, 7:30 p.m. ETCicely Tyson, the stage, screen and television actress whose vivid portrayals of strong African-American women shattered racial stereotypes in the dramatic arts of the 1970s, propelling her to stardom and fame as an exemplar for civil rights, died Thursday. She was 96. Her death was announced by her longtime manager, Larry Thompson.In a remarkable career of seven decades, Ms. Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people. She urged Black colleagues to do the same, and often went without work. She was critical of films and television programs that cast Black characters as criminal, servile or immoral, and insisted that African-Americans, even if poor or downtrodden, should be portrayed with dignity.Her chiseled face and willowy frame, striking even in her 90s, became familiar to millions in more than 100 film, television and stage roles, including some that had traditionally been given only to white actors. She won three Emmys and many awards from civil rights and women’s groups, and at 88 became the oldest person to win a Tony, for her 2013 Broadway role in a revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.”At 93, she won an honorary Oscar, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2018 and into the Television Hall of Fame in 2020. She also won a career achievement Peabody Award in 2020.Despite the gathering force of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, there were few substantial roles for talented, relatively unknown Black actresses like Ms. Tyson. She appeared in Broadway plays, television episodes and minor movie roles before playing Portia, a supporting but notable part in the 1968 film version of Carson McCullers’s “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.”Ms. Tyson and Yvonne Jarrell in  “Sounder” (1972).  Credit…20th Century FoxBut in 1972, in a film called “Sounder,” she found what she was looking for: a leading role with dignity. It was as Rebecca, the wife of a Louisiana sharecropper (Paul Winfield) who is imprisoned in 1933 for stealing food for his children. She rises to the challenge — cleaning houses, tilling fields, sweltering under the sun in a worn dress and braided cornrows — a Black woman whose excruciating beauty lies in toil and poverty.“The story in ‘Sounder’ is a part of our history, a testimony to the strength of humankind,” Ms. Tyson told The New York Times after receiving rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for best actress. “Our whole Black heritage is that of struggle, pride and dignity. The black woman has never been shown on the screen this way before.”In 1974, Ms. Tyson stunned a national television audience with her Emmy Award-winning portrayal of a former slave in the CBS special “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” adapted from the novel by Ernest J. Gaines. Born into slavery before the Civil War, Miss Pittman survives for more than a century to see the civil rights movement of the 1960s. At 110, she tells her story, the searing experience of a Black woman in the South. Then, in her only gesture of protest, she sips from a whites-only drinking fountain.Preparing for her metamorphosis, Ms. Tyson visited nursing homes to study the manifestations of old age: the frail shoulders and shaking hands, the unfocused sparkling eyes and slurred speech, the struggle for names and important thoughts just beyond reach.“Cicely Tyson transforms that role into the kind of event for which awards are made,” John J. O’Connor wrote in The Times, citing her passage from young innocence through cycles of age and maturity to shriveled, knowing antiquity. “She absorbs herself completely into Miss Jane, in the process creating a marvelous blend of sly humor, shrewd perceptions and innate dignity.”Maya Angelou and Ms. Tyson in the 1977 mini-series “Roots”Credit…Warner BrothersMs. Tyson later found other suitable television roles: as Kunta Kinte’s mother in a mini-series based on Alex Haley’s “Roots” in 1977; as Coretta Scott King in the 1978 NBC mini-series “King,” about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final years; as Harriet Tubman, whose Underground Railroad spirited slaves to freedom, in “A Woman Called Moses” (1978); and as a Chicago teacher devoted to poor children in “The Marva Collins Story” (1981). In 1994, she won a supporting actress Emmy for her portrayal of Castalia in the mini-series “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.”For many Americans, Ms. Tyson was an idol of the Black Is Beautiful movement, regal in an African turban and caftan, her face gracing the covers of Ebony, Essence and Jet magazines. She was a vegetarian, a teetotaler, a runner, a meditator and, from 1981 to 1989, the wife of the jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis. Since the ’60s she had inspired Black American women to embrace their own standards of beauty — including helping to popularize the Afro.“She’s our Meryl Streep,” Vanessa Williams told Essence in 2013. “She was the person you wanted to be like in terms of an actress, in terms of the roles she got and how serious she took her craft. She still is.”Ms. Tyson eventually appeared in 29 films; at least 68 television series, mini-series and single episodes; and 15 productions on and off Broadway, including “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright” (1962) and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” (1969).In “The Corn Is Green” (1983), an Emlyn Williams play set in Wales, Ms. Tyson received mixed reviews as Miss Moffat, an English schoolteacher in a coal-mining town who awakens the minds of impoverished youngsters. Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn played the part in earlier film and television adaptations.Since the 1960s, Ms. Tyson had inspired Black American women to embrace their own standards of beauty.Credit…Ben Sklar for The New York TimesAfter a three-decade absence from Broadway, Ms. Tyson returned in 2013 in a production of “The Trip to Bountiful,” playing Carrie Watts, an old woman, also conceived as a white character, who yearns to see her hometown before dying. Her performance won the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.“It’s been 30 years since I stood onstage; I really didn’t think it would happen again in my lifetime, and I was pretty comfortable with that” Ms. Tyson said at the Tonys ceremony. “Except that I had this burning desire to do just one more. ‘One more great role,’ I said. I didn’t want to be greedy. I just wanted one more.” And she appeared with James Earl Jones for nearly four months in 2015-16 in a Broadway revival of “The Gin Game,” D.L. Coburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1976 play about two elderly residents of a retirement home drawn together over a card table.Mr. Jones, then 84, and Ms. Tyson, 90, were onstage for virtually all of its two-hour running time, as Charles Isherwood noted in a review for The Times. “These two superlative performers establish beyond doubt, if we needed any reminding, that great talent is ageless and ever-rewarding,” he said.James Earl Jones and Ms. Tyson in the Broadway revival of “The Gin Game.” Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn January 2021, when she was 96, her memoir, “Just as I Am,” appeared, and in a pre-publication interview with The New York Times Magazine, she was asked if she had any advice for the young.“It’s simple,” she said. “I try always to be true to myself. I learned from my mom: ‘Don’t lie ever, no matter how bad it is. Don’t lie to me ever, OK? You will be happier that you told the truth.’ That has stayed with me, and it will stay with me for as long as I’m lucky enough to be here.”Cicely Tyson was born in East Harlem on Dec. 19, 1924, the youngest of three children of William and Theodosia (also known as Frederica) Tyson, immigrants from the Caribbean island of Nevis. Her father was a carpenter and painter, and her mother was a domestic worker. Her parents separated when she was 10, and the children were raised by a strict Christian mother who did not permit movies or dates.After graduating from Charles Evans Hughes High School, Cicely became a model, appearing in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and elsewhere. In the 1940s, she studied at the Actors Studio. Her first role was on NBC’s “Frontiers of Faith” in 1951. Her disapproving mother kicked her out.After small film and television parts in the 1950s, she joined James Earl Jones and Louis Gossett Jr. in the original New York cast of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks” in 1961. It was the longest-running Off Broadway drama of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. Ms. Tyson played Stephanie Virtue, a prostitute, for two years, and won a Vernon Rice Award in 1962, igniting her career.She helped found the Dance Theater of Harlem after the 1968 assassination of Dr. King. In 1994, an East Harlem building where she lived as a child was named for her; it and three others were rehabilitated for 58 poor families. In 1995, a magnet school she supported in East Orange, N.J., was renamed the Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts.Her later television roles included that of Ophelia Harkness in a half dozen episodes of the long-running ABC legal drama “How to Get Away With Murder,” for which she was nominated repeatedly for Emmys and other awards for outstanding guest or supporting actress (2015-19), and in the role of Doris Jones in three episodes of “House of Cards” (2016).Ms. Tyson accepting her honorary Oscar in 2018. “This is the culmination of all those years of have and have-not,” she said.Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesIn 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.She was always reticent about her age, charity work and other personal details, like being a good-will ambassador for Unicef in 1985-86 and her 1981 marriage to Miles Davis, which ended in divorce in 1989. But she was adamant about dramatic roles. “We Black actresses have played so many prostitutes and drug addicts and housemaids, always negative,” she told Parade magazine in 1972. “I won’t play that kind of characterless role any more, even if I have to go back to starving.”And in November 2018, a month before she turned 94, Ms. Tyson received an honorary Oscar, a Governors Award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In an emotional acceptance speech in Los Angeles, Ms. Tyson, whose highest accolade from the film industry had been her Oscar nomination in 1972, paid tribute to her mother, who had opposed her plan for a career as an entertainer.“Mom, I know you didn’t want me to do this,” she said, “but I did, and here it is. I don’t know that I would cherish a better gift than this,” she told the audience. “This is the culmination of all those years of have and have-not.”Azi Paybarah contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Bridgerton’s’ Approach to Race and Casting Has Precedent Onstage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Notebook‘Bridgerton’s’ Approach to Race and Casting Has Precedent OnstageThere’s been much discussion about the presence of Black actors in Regency England on the Netflix show, but performers of color have been playing historical roles in London theaters for decades.Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in the Netflix series “Bridgerton.”Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixJan. 21, 2021, 3:42 a.m. ETLONDON — As is so often the case, the theater got there first.I’m referring to the approach to race and casting in “Bridgerton,” the sartorially splendid Netflix study in hyperactive Regency-era hormones that everyone’s talking about. Much has been made of the presence across the eight-part series of Black actors populating a Jane Austen-style landscape that is usually shown onscreen as all white.In fact, as London theater observers of a certain generation can attest, this has long been common practice onstage here, across a range of titles and historical periods. That’s been true whether it’s been part of Britain’s pioneering interest in colorblind casting or, as with “Bridgerton,” when productions have played with audience expectations about race to make a point.Either way, the prevailing desire has been to fashion a theatrical world that speaks to the multicultural reality of the country. The idea behind casting a Black actor as a Maine villager (in “Carousel”) or a Viennese court composer (in “Amadeus”) isn’t documentary verisimilitude; rather, it’s to make clear that such time-honored stories belong to all of us, regardless of race.So it seems entirely logical that “Bridgerton” features Black talent — including regulars on the London stage — as nobles and royalty. Among them is Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte, a casting choice intended to reflect the view of some historians that King George III’s wife was biracial.Regé-Jean Page as Simon Basset in “Bridgerton.”Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixAdjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury.Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixIt’s not long in “Bridgerton” before Simon Basset, an eligible Black aristocrat, announces himself with star-making swagger, and no shortage of naked flesh, in the sultry form of newcomer Regé-Jean Page. No less commanding is the Black actress Adjoa Andoh, who arches a mean eyebrow as Simon’s mentor of sorts, Lady Danbury. (She led the cast of a 2019 production of “Richard II” at Shakespeare’s Globe that was performed entirely by actresses of color.)Watching these performers swoop onto the screen, I was reminded of the comparable dazzle some decades back when the actress Josette Simon, who is Black, made her National Theater debut in a 1990 production of Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall,” playing Maggie, a character thought to have been based on Miller’s second wife, Marilyn Monroe. Gone was that play’s previously blonde-wigged heroine: Instead, the director Michael Blakemore’s production raised new possibilities about the relationship between Miller’s male lead, the liberal-leaning lawyer Quentin, and the singing star and seductress who becomes his wife.James Laurenson and Josette Simon in “After the Fall” at the National Theater in London in 1990.Credit…Alastair Muir/ShutterstockThat show removed the play from the realm of gossip — that’s to say, how much was Miller revealing about the famously doomed actress to whom he was married? Suddenly, a comparatively minor piece from the playwright seemed both more substantial and more moving, and Simon, who went on to play Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company just a few years ago, enjoyed a deserved moment of glory.The National Theater has kept pace with “After the Fall” in its casting ever since. Two years later, Nicholas Hytner’s revelatory revival of “Carousel” brought the clarion-voiced Black actor Clive Rowe an Olivier nomination for his role as the sweet, fish-loving Mr. Snow; in 2003, another landmark Hytner staging, “Henry V,” put the Black stage and screen star Adrian Lester in the title role.That fiery modern-dress production, with its evocations of the Iraq war, reminded audiences that combat can be blind to skin color — so why shouldn’t kingship? Lester triumphed in the part, as he had across town at the Donmar Warehouse in 1996 when he became the first Black performer to play Bobby in a major production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company.”Adrian Lester as Henry V at the National Theater in 2003.Credit…Ivan Kyncl/ArenaPALThese days, casting across the racial spectrum mostly passes without comment here. But it’s instructive to note the immediate retaliation, in 2018, when the theater critic Quentin Letts, then writing for the Daily Mail, questioned the Royal Shakespeare Company’s casting of Leo Wringer, a Black actor, in a forgotten restoration comedy, “The Fantastic Follies of Mrs. Rich,” written in 1700.“Was Mr. Wringer cast because he is Black?” Letts inquired rhetorically in his review. “If so, the R.S.C.’s clunking approach to politically correct casting has again weakened its stage product.” The company’s artistic director, Gregory Doran, shot back a statement comparing Letts to “an old dinosaur, raising his head from the primordial swamp.”Sometimes, as with a recent, and remarkable, “Amadeus” that featured the vibrant Black actor Lucian Msamati in the role of the Italian composer Antonio Salieri, the casting is colorblind, which means that the performer has been chosen irrespective of race. Elsewhere, as with the Young Vic’s “Death of a Salesman” in 2019, a conscious choice has been made — in that instance, to present the Loman family as Black to change our perspective on a familiar play.“Bridgerton” looks at first as if it may be taking the first route, only to counter that assumption later on, when a surprise discussion among the characters steers the drama toward the second. “Color and race are part of the show,” the series’s creator, Chris Van Dusen, told The New York Times last month.“Bridgerton” harks back to a vanished England of corsets and chastity, while nodding toward the diverse society of today. That dual focus — the ability, from its casting onward, to straddle two worlds at once — is something that has been long understood on the London stage. At a time when London playhouses remain closed, such memories are the stuff of enjoyable reflection. I only hope that, if the second season of “Bridgerton” that Netflix has hinted at ever arrives, I will be squeezing it in between visits to the theater.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A Trip Into the Otherworldly With Adrienne Kennedy as Guide

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookA Trip Into the Otherworldly With Adrienne Kennedy as GuideA digital four-play retrospective, capped by a world premiere, illuminates this writer’s fascination with doubling, violence and Black identity.Maya Jackson, left, and Michael Sweeney Hammond in Adrienne Kennedy’s “He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box,” a Round House Theater production in association with the McCarter Theater Center.Credit…via Round House TheaterPublished More

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      A Theater Serves as a Courthouse, Provoking Drama Offstage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Theater Serves as a Courthouse, Provoking Drama OffstageBlack artists and activists in Birmingham, England, say the city’s largest playhouse has sold out by leasing its auditoriums to the criminal justice system.Before the dispute, the Birmingham Repertory Theater had long been praised for its efforts to engage people of color.Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesJan. 18, 2021BIRMINGHAM, England — One recent Monday, Sarah Buckingham walked into an auditorium at Birmingham Repertory Theater, strode up some steps to a platform and looked out at her audience. She was in full costume, with a wig, and everyone rose to their feet.It might seem like a star’s entrance, but Ms. Buckingham is not an actress; she is a judge, overseeing a criminal trial.Three national lockdowns in Britain, as well as tough social distancing guidelines, have hampered the business of England’s court system this past year, creating a huge backlog of cases. Since July, the country’s courts service has been renting suitable spaces — like theaters, but also conference centers and local government buildings — then turning them into temporary courtrooms.“I believe a large number of you are familiar with this building for reasons unrelated to crime,” Ms. Buckingham told the jury, before the case began. About 30 feet away from her stood Rzgar Mohammad, 34, a delivery driver who was accused of smashing a glass hookah pipe against another man’s head, then hitting him repeatedly with a pole. He was pleading not guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.Britain’s theaters have been in financial crisis since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to shut last March. Although a few have hosted performances for socially distanced audiences, most have only survived through a combination of crisis grants and layoffs. Given that, the Birmingham theater’s decision to lease space to the courts service is perhaps unsurprising. Another theater, in the Lowry arts complex in Manchester, has been hosting trials since October. The interior of a theater at the Lowry arts complex in Manchester, reconfigured as a court.Credit…Nathan ChandlerTrials have been taking place at the Lowry since October.Credit…Nathan ChandlerBut the move has angered theatermakers in Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city, who claim the courts and the police have historically targeted communities of color, and that theaters should be kept as spaces for creativity. Jay Crutchley, a Black director, said in a telephone interview that the Rep — as the theater is known in Birmingham — had “just endorsed probably the biggest systematic oppressor of Black people in this country.” Young Black men are disproportionately represented in Britain’s prisons, he added, and many people growing up in Birmingham — white and Black — have bad experiences with the police. “I’ve had close friends go through the court system,” he said, “and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped and searched.” The Rep’s decision to host a court was turning the theater into a potential site of trauma, Mr. Crutchley added. “There’s a line for me where ethics gets in the way of money,” he said. On Monday, the theater announced two online meetings to listen to the feedback of anyone concerned about its decision. “We are committed to hearing your thoughts directly,” it said.Birmingham is one of Britain’s most diverse cities — at the time of the last census, in 2011, more than a quarter of its population was Asian, and around 9 percent was Black — and the Rep has long been praised for its efforts to engage people of color. Its latest season would have included several plays by people of color, if coronavirus had not forced its closure. Those included the premiere of Lolita Chakrabarti’s “Calmer,” directed by the Black actor Adrian Lester. Mr. Lester is a trustee of the Birmingham Rep’s board and is also married to Ms. Chakrabarti.But just days after the Dec. 14 announcement that the playhouse would be used to hear trials, Talawa — a leading Black theater company — canceled a scheduled season of plays at the Rep on the theme of “Black joy.” The Rep’s move “does not align with Talawa’s commitment to Black artists and communities,” the company said in a news release. (A spokeswoman for Talawa declined to an interview request for this article.)A 2018 production of “Guys and Dolls” by the Talawa theater company. The company pulled out of a collaboration with the Birmingham Repertory Theater after it leased space to the courts service.Credit…Manuel HarlanThe organizers of More Than a Moment, a Birmingham-based cultural initiative aimed at promoting Black artists, also removed the Rep from its guiding committee.The theater, whose spokesman declined an interview request, said in a blog post that the deal with the courts was needed to secure its financial future. Yet Rico Johnson-Sinclair, the manager of SHOUT, an L.G.B.T. arts festival that holds events at the Rep, said in a telephone interview that the Rep was not in immediate danger and had money to keep running until April. In October, Britain’s culture ministry gave the Rep £1.3 million, about $1.8 million.“If they’d been transparent and said, ‘We need to do this or we’re going to go under and they’ll be no more Birmingham Rep,’ I think the Black community would have been more forgiving,” Mr. Johnson-Sinclair said. “But I still don’t think it’s the right course of action.”In interviews outside the theater, six Black passers-by expressed divergent views about the situation. Three said they understood the complaints, but were supportive of the theater becoming a court. “What else can they do to survive?” said Elliot Myers, 30, the owner of a marketing agency. “Needs must,” he added. Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesBut three were opposed. “I know they’re desperate for money, but surely we can find another way?” said David Foster, 47, a street cleaner. Philip Morris, 37, a barber said, “You don’t want to be going to the theater thinking, ‘Court system.’” He added that the theater would be “just more for the European white now.”In the makeshift courtroom on Monday, the proceedings did sometimes have the air of a theatrical courtroom drama. Mr. Brotherton, the prosecution’s lawyer, outlined his case, then showed the jury a video capturing part of the incident. Everyone paid rapt attention. But in real life, trials unfold at a less than gripping pace. Just as things were getting exciting, the judge stopped the proceedings for lunch and so clerks could find an interpreter for one of the witnesses. But when everyone returned to the auditorium, the interpreter was still nowhere to be seen. The lawyers spoke among themselves, marveling at the lighting rig above.After another 50 minutes, the interpreter still hadn’t arrived, unable to find the theater. It was the type of event that delays many court proceedings in Britain, even outside a pandemic.“All right, I’ll admit defeat,” Judge Buckingham said after learning the news. She called the jury back into the room, and sent them home for the day. The 12 men and women shuffled out, stage right, but with little sense of drama or spectacle. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Movies to Stream for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMovies to Stream for Martin Luther King Jr. DaySeven recent films help commemorate King’s legacy in fighting for racial justice.Martin Luther King Jr. is featured in the documentary “MLK/FBI.”Credit…IFC FilmsJan. 17, 2021With each year since it was designated as a holiday in 1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day has carried new yet immovable significance. It did so the year following Rodney King’s 1991 assault. It did so in the years following the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. And now, following the past year’s deaths of Representative John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the arrival of the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, the November presidential election and this month’s storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, the holiday carries that much more meaning. In our government, in our elections, and in our law enforcement the signs of racism still lurk.Rather than enumerate already venerated civil rights films like Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” and Agnès Varda’s “Black Panthers,” unquestionably important works, this list compiles streaming titles from this year and last that not only speak to King’s racial justice legacy, but also to the continued and immediate struggle for voting rights and equal treatment under the law.‘Time’Stream it on Amazon.Fox Rich in a scene from “Time,” directed by Garrett Bradley.Credit…Amazon StudiosFor 18 years Fox Rich, a modern-day abolitionist, filmed thousands of home videos for her imprisoned husband Rob. Because of her involvement (as the getaway driver) in a robbery conducted by her husband and his cousin in 1997, Rich served three and a half years while the court sentenced Rob to 60 years in prison. Garrett Bradley’s affecting black-and-white film documents the moments Rob lost with his six children and his dedicated wife. In an 81-minute span, a delicate edit of those heartfelt video messages chronicling missed birthday parties, impassioned speeches and letters of love, Bradley explores not only how the prison industrial complex defrauds Black citizens of much more than time, but also how one woman remained undaunted in her mission to free her husband.‘One Night in Miami’Stream it on Amazon.Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcom X in “One Night in Miami.”Credit…Patti Perret/Amazon StudiosRegina King’s feature, adapted from Kemp Powers’s play of the same name, and loosely based on a true event, concerns four of the more prominent Black cultural figures of the 1960s — Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) — meeting in a Miami hotel room after Clay’s 1964 victory over Sonny Liston. Each actor delivers enjoyable one-liners that come off as genuine. And the dialogue they speak regarding the pathways for racial justice is as heartfelt as it is powerful. In her direction, King makes us wish for a second night.‘MLK/FBI’Watch it on demand.With the many films and historical texts on King, we know that his life was well-documented. But Sam Pollard’s “MLK/FBI” shows that it was much more traced than some may have imagined. From 1963 to King’s death, in a bid to destabilize the civil rights movement, the F.B.I. recorded thousands of hours of audio surveillance on the activist. This provocative film provides more than King’s soaring speeches. It investigates the meaning behind being a moral leader. Rumors about King having multiple affairs are raised and the questionable tactics of F.B.I. counterintelligence are examined. “MLK/FBI” is a complicated portrayal of a deified hero. Yet in the thorniness of King’s personal history the humanity of the man is redefined.‘Mangrove’Stream it on Amazon.Shaun Parkes as Frank Crichlow and Letitia Wright as Altheia Jones-LeCointe in “Mangrove,” part of the director Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology.Credit…Des Willie/Amazon Prime VideoWhile you should watch all of Steve McQueen’s five-film British anthology “Small Axe,” the civil rights narrative of “Mangrove” is particularly resonant. Concerning the Mangrove Nine, a group of West Indian protesters put on trial in 1970 for inciting a riot, McQueen crafts a courtroom battle that spotlights the racism that exposed extralegal cracks in the British justice system. Powerhouse performances from Letitia Wright as the British Black Panther member Altheia Jones-LeCointe, and Shaun Parkes as the restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, propel a film that centers the unyielding fight for self-determination.‘John Lewis: Good Trouble’Stream it on HBO Max.John Lewis, the subject of “Good Trouble.”Credit…Magnolia PicturesRepresentative John Lewis’s ethos “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble,” inspires the title of Dawn Porter’s documentary about the civil rights icon. The film covers Lewis’s major accomplishments — being the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington; leading the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.; and being elected to Congress — while conveying his lifelong dedication to nonviolent resistance. And few stagings hit with greater force than Lewis watching, in astonishment, the footage from his activist life. Sentimental yet undaunted, Porter’s documentary is an essential tribute to Lewis and his struggle.‘Da 5 Bloods’Stream it on Netflix.Spike Lee narrates a sequence from his Netflix feature.CreditCredit…David Lee/NetflixSpike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” and George Floyd’s death are inextricably linked. The film about four Black war veterans returning to Vietnam to recover the remains of Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), their fallen commander, and the C.I.A. gold they left buried, was released in the throes of protests following Floyd’s killing. Through a searing soliloquy, Paul (Delroy Lindo), the drama’s tragic lead who never recovered from losing Norman, lends voice to the generation of Black men forced into watching their friends die in a thankless war, only to return home to find civil rights leaders killed as well. “Da 5 Bloods” concludes with a Black Lives Matter chant, and it’s Paul’s belief that his Black life does matter that is the film’s heartbeat.‘All In: The Fight for Democracy’Stream it on Amazon.Stacey Abrams working a phone bank in a scene from “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” a documentary about combating voter suppression.Credit…Amazon StudiosThe woman of the hour remains Stacey Abrams. The Democratic candidate for Georgia governor played an instrumental role not only in Joe Biden’s presidential win in that state, but also in Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff’s Senate victories. Abrams’s campaigning, however, began long before the 2020 election. In this frank documentary, the directors Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés demonstrate how Abrams laid the groundwork to fight decades of voter disenfranchisement in Georgia, and how those efforts reverberated beyond the state.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.The casting has fueled a debate about structural racism and fanned anger about stereotyping and prejudice in European-language voice-overs, even when films have main characters of color.Jamie Foxx is the voice of the main character in “Soul,” Joe Gardner. In some dubbed versions for European release, white actors have taken that role.Credit…Disney/PixarJan. 16, 2021, 6:09 a.m. ETCOPENHAGEN — Like most of their counterparts around the world, Danish film critics initially greeted “Soul,” Pixar’s first animated feature to focus on Black characters and African-American culture, with rapture, hailing its sensitive, joyful portrayal of a jazz musician on a quest to live a meaningful life.The film was described as “a miracle,” by one reviewer in Denmark, “beautiful and life-giving” by another.What the Danish press did not initially focus on, by and large, was the characters’ race. But that changed after the movie’s release on Dec. 25, when realization spread that the Danish-language version had been dubbed primarily by white actors. This is also the case in many other European-language versions of “Soul.”While in most countries, the film’s voice-over casting has barely registered with the public, in Portugal, more than 17,000 have signed a petition calling on Pixar to remake the local edition with actors of color. “This movie is not just another movie, and representation matters,” the petition states.Joe Gardner, the main character in “Soul,” is Pixar’s first Black protagonist. and the studio took steps to accurately represent African-American culture, hiring Kemp Powers as a co-director and installing a “cultural trust” to safeguard the story’s authenticity. The actor Jamie Foxx, who voices Joe in the English-language original, told The New York Times, “To be the first Black lead in a Pixar film feels like a blessing.”In the Danish version, Joe is voiced by Nikolaj Lie Kaas, who is white. When the national newspaper Berlingske interviewed scholars and activists who expressed their disappointment about this and suggested that the casting was an example of structural racism, a fiery controversy erupted, prompting Lie Kaas to issue a statement about why he had accepted the role.Nikolaj Lie Kaas, a Danish actor, voices Joe Gardiner’s part in the Danish version of “Soul.”Credit…Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images“My position with regards to any job is very simple,” he wrote on Facebook. “Let the man or woman who can perform the work in the best possible way get the job.”Asta Selloane Sekamane, one of the activists who criticized the casting in the Berlingske article, said in an interview that no one can claim there wasn’t enough Black talent to fill the main roles, because actors of color were hired to voice some of the minor parts. “It can’t be the constant excuse, this idea that we can’t find people who live up to our standards,” she added. “That’s an invisible bar that ties qualification to whiteness.”Mira Skadegard, a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark who researches discrimination and inequality, said the resistance to accusations of structural racism was unsurprising. “In Denmark, we have a long history of denial when it comes to racism, and a deep investment in the ideal of equality,” she said.“We don’t really understand this as a critique of institutions and structures; we see it as a critique of who we are,” she added.In Denmark and Portugal, dubbing is generally reserved for animation and for children’s programs. But in other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, most mainstream films from abroad are dubbed, and the practice is seen as an art in its own right — one that rests on the practitioners’ ability to make themselves unobtrusive.“The best dubbing should pass by completely undetected,” said Juan Logar, a leading Spanish dubbing director and voice actor.“My job is to find the voice that best matches the original,” said Logar. “Black, white, Asian, it doesn’t matter.”Charles Rettinghaus, a German dubbing artist, expressed a similar sentiment. In his 40-year career, he has been the voice of actors including Jean-Claude Van Damme and Javier Bardem, but he said he felt a special connection with Jamie Foxx, whom he has covered in more than 20 films, including the German version of “Soul.”Although he is white, Rettinghaus said he had not felt pressured to step away from any Black roles, adding that the same opportunities should apply to actors of all races. “It doesn’t matter if you are Black, you should be and are allowed to dub anything,” he said. “Why shouldn’t you play a white actor or an Indian or an Asian?”Kaze Uzumaki, a Black colleague of Rettinghaus, said it was more complicated than that. Uzumaki dubs the character of Paul in “Soul” and has lent his voice to the German versions of dozens of other American films and television series. Almost without exception, his roles were originally played by actors of color.“At first, I really didn’t like it,” he said. “But I figured I was more comfortable with me speaking the role than a lot of other white colleagues who don’t have a good knowledge of the English language, and can’t really tell what a Black person sounds like.”The German actor Kaze Uzumaki voices the role of Paul in the German version of “Soul.”Credit…Kaze UzumakiUzumaki said that he had dubbed doctors of color in hospital shows, only to be told by the director that he sounded “too educated.”“They don’t even realize that they’re being racist,” Uzumaki said. “But every time a director says something like, ‘No, you sound too polished; you know how they talk, right?’ I feel like I’ve been hit with a stick in the face.”The discrimination is often double-edged. Ivo Chundro, a Dutch actor of color who dubbed the part of Paul in “Soul” for distribution in the Netherlands, said, “Directors will only cast white actors for white parts, and tell actors of color, ‘No, your voice isn’t white enough.’”Some directors say that demographics limit who they select. “In Spain, we don’t have a second generation of immigrants yet,” said Logar. “Except for a few very young kids, there aren’t a lot of Black actors who were born here and speak Spanish without an accent.”Actors of color like Chundro and Uzumaki contend that those directors simply aren’t looking hard enough. But there are signs that things are starting to change. In 2007, a dubbing director in France told the actress Yasmine Modestine that, because she was mixed race, her voice wasn’t right for a part. Based on her complaint, the French equal opportunities commission investigated the dubbing industry as a whole and found a culture of prejudice and stereotyping.Fily Keita, right, dubs the voices of many famous actresses — both Black and white — for their movies’ French releases.Credit…Yan Coadou/Thibaut MicheSince then, the opportunities for voice actors of color have expanded there. Fily Keita, who voiced Lupita Nyong’o in the French-language version of “Black Panther,” said that she didn’t feel held back as a Black actor working in the industry. She has also lent her voice to roles played originally by white actresses, such as Amanda Seyfried and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.“I love dubbing precisely because it’s a space of freedom,” she said. “Where you’re not limited by your physical appearance.”Chundro, the Dutch actor, said that the Black Lives Matter movement was starting to shift the conversation around race and representation in the Netherlands. He cited a demonstration in Amsterdam in June as helping open eyes to enduring racism.“I used to have a lot of discussions about racism where people just didn’t get it,” Chundro said. But the protest “was like a bandage being ripped off a wound, and since then, it’s been much easier to talk about,” he added.With that greater awareness has come more opportunities, he said. “There’s more work out there, and I’m getting cast a lot more.”Sekamane, the Danish activist, also credited the movement with changing attitudes. “I’m 30 years old, and my whole life I’ve been told racism is in my head,” she said. “It’s only in the last year, thanks to Black Lives Matter, that the conversation has started to change.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘One Night in Miami’ Review: After the Big Fight, a War of Words

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s pick‘One Night in Miami’ Review: After the Big Fight, a War of WordsA 1964 meeting of Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown is the subject of Regina King’s riveting directorial debut.A moment in time: A scene from Regina King’s “One Night in Miami.” Kingsley Ben-Adir, left, as Malcolm X, taking a photo of Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.).Credit…Patti Perret/Amazon StudiosJan. 14, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETOne Night in MiamiNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Regina KingDramaR1h 54mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.On Feb. 25, 1964, at the Convention Hall in Miami Beach, Fla., Cassius Clay — not yet known as Muhammad Ali — defeated Sonny Liston to become the heavyweight champion of the world. That’s hardly a spoiler, and the fight isn’t the main event in “One Night in Miami,” Regina King’s debut feature as a director. The movie is about what happens after the final bell, when Clay and three men who witnessed the fight gather for a low-key after-party that turns into an impromptu seminar on fame, political action and the obligations of Black celebrities in a time of crisis.The host is Malcolm X, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir less as a confident, charismatic orator than as a smart, anxious man facing a crisis of his own. We’re reminded in a few early scenes of the rift opening up between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad, his mentor and the leader of the Nation of Islam. Frustrated by Muhammad’s autocratic dogmatism and appalled at his sexual predations, Malcolm sees Clay (Eli Goree), who is gravitating toward Islam, as “the ace up my sleeve” — a prominent ally who will help him break away from the Nation.[embedded content]Joining the boxer and the minister in a modest suite at the Hampton House motel are the Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and the singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.). Each is at the peak of his career, and also at something of a crossroads. Brown, increasingly fed up with the ways Black athletes are exploited and commodified, has his eye on Hollywood. Cooke’s most recent effort to attract a white audience — a gig at the Copacabana in New York — was met with a chilly reception.Malcolm tries to push Cooke in another direction, arguing that the job of successful Black artists isn’t to court white approval but to use their fame and talent to advance the cause of their own people. The dramatic nerve center of the film, adapted by Kemp Powers from his own play, is the quarrel between Malcolm and Cooke, who have known each other for a long time and whose intimacy is laced with rivalry and resentment. It’s a complex and subtle debate that implicates Clay and Brown, and that reverberates forward in history and the later actions of all four.Cooke, who drives a red sports car, smokes cigarettes and carries a flask in his jacket, stands in obvious temperamental contrast to Malcolm, who is both the straight arrow and the nerd of the group, offering them vanilla ice cream and showing off his new Rolleiflex camera. Among the pleasures of “One Night in Miami” is how it allows us to imagine we’re glimpsing the private selves of highly public figures, exploring aspects of their personalities that their familiar personas were partly constructed to obscure.This is also, I think, an important argument of Powers’s script: History isn’t made by icons, but by human beings. Fame, which provides each of them with opportunities and temptations, comes with a cost. The fine print of racism is always part of the contract. What Cooke, Brown and Clay share is a desire for freedom — a determination to find independence from the businesses and institutions that seek to control them and profit from their talents.Malcolm, who faces different constraints, urges them to connect their own freedom with something larger, an imperative that each of the others, in his own way, acknowledges. Malcolm’s manner can be didactic, but “One Night in Miami” is anything but. Instead of a group biopic or a ready-made costume drama, it’s an intellectual thriller, crackling with the energy of ideas and emotions as they happen. Who wouldn’t want to be in that room? And there we are.What we witness may not be exactly what happened. I don’t know if Malcolm X really traveled with a copy of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” in his luggage so that he could make a point about protest music by dropping the needle on “Blowin’ in the Wind.” There are aspects of the characters’ lives that are noted in passing but not really explored — notably Cooke’s and Brown’s treatment of women. Malcolm’s wife, Betty Shabazz (Joaquina Kalukango), appears in a few scenes, as does Barbara Cooke (Nicolette Robinson), but they are marginal to a story that is preoccupied with manhood. Still, there is enough authenticity and coherence in the writing and the performances to make the film a credible representation of its moment, and King’s direction makes it more than that.An actress of singular poise and intensity — see “Watchmen,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” and, going back a little further, “Poetic Justice” — she demonstrates those traits behind the camera as well. There are a few boxing and musical scenes, but most of the action in “One Night in Miami” is talk. King’s attention to it as nimble and unpredictable as the dialogue itself, and creates an atmosphere of restlessness and spontaneity, that nervous, exhilarating feeling that this night could go anywhere.Clay, the youngest of the four, is the one who most vividly embodies that sense of possibility. Goree captures the familiar rasp and melody of the voice, and also the champion’s wit and exuberance. There haven’t been many people who could match his giddy, unapologetic delight in being himself, and Clay can look a bit callow next to Cooke and Brown, who have logged more years and paid more dues in the world of celebrity. But Goree shows that Clay, as playful as he could be, was also serious and brave, qualities that would come to the fore a few years later when he risked his career and his freedom to oppose the Vietnam War.The seeds of that action and others, this movie suggests, were planted that night. The shadows of a complicated, tragic future hover over the motel furniture. Within a year of that night, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X would both be killed, one in a Los Angeles motel, the other in a Harlem ballroom. (Only Malcolm’s death is mentioned in the film). The later chapters in Muhammad Ali’s life, and in Brown’s, are part of the crazy, contentious record of our time.And “One Night in Miami,” at first glance, might be taken as a minor anecdote plucked from that larger narrative. It doesn’t make grand statements about race, politics, sports or music. It’s just a bunch of guys talking — bantering, blustering, dropping their defenses and opening their hearts. But the substance of their talk is fascinating, and their arguments echo powerfully in the present. This is one of the most exciting movies I’ve seen in quite some time.One Night in Miami.Rated R. Smoking and Swearing. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. Watch on Amazon.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More