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Anim adversion: So you think African-Americans can’t debate?
The Great Debaters
Directed by: Denzel Washington
Produced by: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, David Crockett, Kate Forte, Todd Black, Joe Roth and Oprah Winfrey
Screenplay: Robert Eisele
Cast: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Jermaine Williams, J. D. Evermore, John Heard, Nate Parker, Denzel Whitaker and Jurnee Smollett
Distributor: MGM
Running Time: 123 minutes
I often wonder about cliché-less sports film based on an actual event. Clichéd by-products in film are often mistaken as roaming grounds of contrived inanity and insipidity plagued by tired expression.
Mr Roger Ebert opens his review of The Great Debaters by saying that it “is about an underdog debate team that wins a national championship, and some critics have complained that it follows the formula of all sports movies by leading up, through great adversity, to a victory at the end. So it does. How many sports movies, or movies about underdogs competing in any way, have you seen that end in defeat? It is human nature to seek inspiration in victory, and this is a film that is affirming and inspiring and recreates the stories of a remarkable team and its coach.
“The team is from little Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, a black institution in the Jim Crow South of the 1930s. The school’s English professor, Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington), is a taskmaster who demands the highest standards from his debate team, and they’re rewarded with a national championship. That’s what the ‘sports movie’ is about, but this movie is about so much more and in ways that do not follow formulas,” adds Ebert in his shrewd debate, proficiently arguing in favour of clichés.
The Great Debaters is directed by and stars Denzel Washington. It is a showcase of veritable acting talents, authoritative dialogues and a manipulative script which neatly swipes the film’s lenient shortcomings beneath the rug — such as Wiley team’s arguments which are conveniently grounded on their topics ethical and optimistic viewpoints. We never see Wiley’s contesting scandalised topics which might come across their (or the film’s) blue-ribbon morals.
Almost all prominent characters are embellished with categorically eminent principals and Washingtons solid, reality-binding direction conveniently sidesteps clichéd twists and heavily fictionalised retakes on what really happened (the film is based on true events). In its place it infuses a ferociously conscientious, grappling sense of noble achievement. Robert Eisele’s screenplay conveniently emphasises and downplays key events with crackling dialogues (“We do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do,” says James Farmer Jr. at one point in the film).
Denzel Washington lends unswerving support in and out of the film, as Melvin B. Tolson, the famed American poet (a fact the screenplay intelligently skips) and social activist is mistaken for a communist by the authorities in the film. Washingtons Tolson, like so many African-American in-film educators, is a dignified, confined alteration to the bilateral template. Tightlipped about his affairs, he moves like a human dynamo conducing (oft unwarranted) support for his handpicked debaters, then dons farm worker overalls and surreptitiously ducks into the shadows to help organise the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.
The film is directed by and stars Denzel Washington. It is a showcase of veritable acting talents, authoritative dialogues and a manipulative script which neatly swipes the lenient shortcomings beneath the rug — such as Wiley team’s arguments which are conveniently grounded on their ethical and optimistic viewpoints. We never see Wiley’s contesting scandalized topics which might come across their (or the film’s) blue-ribbon morals.
The Wiley debate team is made up of James Farmer Jr. Denzel Whitaker, the 14-year researcher for the team whose ripening age secrets an attraction for Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett) the team’s pro-feminist debater who is romantically involved with Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), the gifted debater who shares a bad-boy streak and a tendency to skedaddle away when pressure works up. Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams) is the intelligent speaker who bows out in the middle of the film on mounting family pressure when Tolson’s political activity becomes public knowledge.
Whitaker shares no relations to Denzel Washington or Forrest Whitaker, who plays the young Whitaker’s father James Farmer Sr. (historically the first African-American to earn a doctorate in the state of Texas) — the other power-player in the film who owns a small yet definite position.
As much as I like The Great Debaters, too much of it feels faux. The pacing, the feelings and the acting all share a confined settlement between a Hallmark hall of fame title and an indie-movie. What it is is a studio-backed film under the guise of an independent movie and Washington as Melvin Tolson is its open indication.
Released by MGM and The Weinstein Co., The Great Debaters is rated PG13 for strong subliminal messages about ethical values, unbending beliefs on literacy and education, that’s right up Oprah Winfrey’s alley (also one of the film’s producers). The film stars Denzel Washington, Forrest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Jermaine Williams and Denzel Whitaker.
Second opinion
Bordering along the same line as Antwone Fisher, Denzel Washington’s direction in The Great Debaters shows the same fascination with youth and their potential. Casting an unknown cast and unraveling their presence through straight-laced, no-nonsense direction, Washington pulls out the film from a normal Hallmark TV movie category.
The splendor of The Great Debaters lies in the fact that it is forgivable for it shortcomings. The movie is laden with an optimistic message that education has the power to change the world. In midst of bleak racial backdrop of the 1930s the message was as relevant then as it is now when ignorance is breathing a new life to racism everywhere. The Great Debaters has a cast made up of vastly experienced actors working side by side with the films younger leads which results in gripping performances around a script woven with vigorous dialogues authored by screenwriter Robert Eisele.
Based upon real events the Hollywood-ised treatment is deadpanning the obvious even when its crudeness is rendered down to certain points in the film. It’s most conspicuous rough edges was the love angle which appears as a significant plot pusher. The Great Debaters isn’t the greatest film of the year, but it sure is un-debatably one of the better ones. — Farheen Jawaid
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