Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 17 November 2017
In 'Mudbound,' Dee Rees crafts

a Jim Crow epic of 2 families

By JAKE COYLE dense, expansively empa- struggling within the same
AP Film Writer thetic — stands apart from environment, and all kind
NEW YORK (AP) — The mov- most previous period films. of facing away from each
ies have tended to skip from As a rich, earthy moral tale, other, at least at the start of
slavery to the Civil Rights it has clear reverberations the story they are."
movement, but Dee Rees' for today's racial injustices. "Mudbound," shot over 28
"Mudbound" plunges into Based on the novel by Hill- days in New Orleans in the
the complex tragedies of ary Jordan, it details both summer of 2016, is a big
In this Jan. 21, 2017 file photo, director Dee Rees, clockwise the in-between era of Jim the McAllan family, who step into epic storytelling for
from left, actors Garrett Hedlund, Rob Morgan, Mary J. Blige, Crow. The film, which Netflix are white, and the Jack- the indie Rees. She made
Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan, middle row center, pose for a
portrait to promote the film, "Mudbound" during the Sundance hopes will be its first feature- son family, who are black. 2007's "Pariah," about a
Film Festival in Park City, Utah. film Oscar contender, fol- Swindled out of their sav- Brooklyn teenager's fraught
lows two neighboring fami- ings, Henry McAllan (Jason sexual discovery, with
lies — one black, one white Clarke) brings his wife (Car- $450,000 and followed that
— on a hardscrabble farm ey Mulligan) and daugh- up with the 2015 HBO Bessie
in 1940s Mississippi. ters to his family's swampy Smith biopic "Bessie." Rees,
"I was interested with ex- Delta farm where the Jack- who's currently prepping
ploring the idea of who sons — a family of six led a Gloria Steinem film with
gets to be in possession of by Hap (Rob Morgan) and Mulligan set to star, has
the land — how it's some- Florence (Mary J. Blige) — made films that are deeply
times impossible to go are their tenants. personal and convincingly
back home, how family "It's a time period that's intimate without being au-
can be the thing that drags rarely touched in cinema tobiographical.
you down," Rees says. "It's — that sharecropper's time "With 'Pariah,' at the time,
not just about race. It's period," says Morgan. "For I had just come out. I had
not just about oppression. black America, they either a coming out experience
It's about how our histories see you as a slave or in jail. and I was writing about it,
are intertwined, how we're You don't get to see that transposing my experience
connected to be the peo- Jim Crow period where as an adult: What would
ple who came before us." the underbelly is still ugly it have been like if I had
For Rees and many of those but it's hidden." It's a thin been a teenager in Brook-
involved, making "Mud- veil, though. When World lyn?" says Rees. "The funny
bound" was, itself, an ex- War II begins, both fami- thing was people thought I
perience interwoven with lies send a young man to was from Brooklyn. I had to
heritage. Rees, the Nash- war: Henry's brother, Jamie be like, 'No, I'm from Nash-
ville-native filmmaker of (Garrett Hedlund), and the ville.'"
2011's "Pariah," drew heav- oldest Jackson son, Ron- "Mudbound" also holds
ily from the journals of her sel (Jason Mitchell). When particular meaning for Mor-
grandmother, whose Louisi- they return, having been gan, who co-starred in "Pa-
ana parents picked cotton. exposed to both the hor- riah." A native New Yorker,
Her grandfathers — one rors of war and, for Ronsel, Morgan spent his childhood
who fought in WWII and the comparative freedoms summers working in North
one who fought in Korea of Europe, they strike up a Carolina tobacco fields.
— also informed the script, friendship that provokes Hap, he says, is his tribute to
which Rees co-wrote with the small town's violently his grandfather — a strong
Virgil Williams. racist elements, including and selfless man devoted
"For me, it was a chance the Ku Klux Klan. The movie to his family.
to delve into my own his- opens ominously with the "Hap was my chance to
tory," says Rees. One young digging of a muddy grave. give a voice to the voice-
character was given Rees' Having starred in numer- less of countless black men
grandmother's humble ous recent period films in America who would do
ambition: to be a stenog- ("Suffragette, "Far From for their family whatever it
rapher. After its debut at the Madding Crowd," ''The takes, who would be hu-
the Sundance Film Festival, Great Gatsby"), Mulligan miliated with dignity for his
Netflix plunked down $12.5 initially hesitated at joining family to survive," says Mor-
million for "Mudbound," the film. But she was quickly gan. "Hap is a man who
which lands on the stream- convinced by Rees' devo- understands he's in Missis-
ing service Friday along tion to depicting the myri- sippi. There doesn't have to
with a small theatrical re- ad relationships among the be a reason he could be
lease. Should it find Acad- families as each character hung. So he has to be smart
emy Awards attention, individually responds to the enough to play dumb
"Mudbound" could be not era's rigid and prejudiced enough to survive."
just Netflix's first best picture social hierarchy. As "Mudbound" moves
nominee but potentially "There are flaws in each along, Rees intercuts
make Rees the first black character. There's no hero. scenes at the farm with
woman nominated for best There's no clear villain be- snapshots of war. All are
director. cause of the social con- fighting their own front,
In its biracial dichotomy, struct at the time," says but with varied levels of
"Mudbound" — grippingly Mulligan. "Everyone's just freedom.q