Story by Gregory Allen Howard
Screenplay Written by Gregory Allen Howard and Kasi Lemmons
Directed by Kasi Lemmons
*** (three stars)
RATED PG 13
Special thanks to my Mom, Mrs. Aretha Collins, for saying the very words that have become the title of this review
I am reminded of a time during childhood when I would watch Chicago's channel 44, anxiously awaiting the (barely) animated but entirely enveloping adventures of the Marvel Comics superheroes, an d enduring the downright endless installments of "The 700 Club," when on occasion I would be intrigued by commercials advertising Bible stories reformatted into comic books.
While I was not necessarily interested in reading Bible stories, comic books were comic books and perhaps, the stories that completely eluded me during church would somehow become more tangible if presented within a context that I did understand. Needless to say, my Mother refused to indulge this interest, feeling that the comic book treatment would only trivialize, and therefore, undermine what she believes to be the Word Of God.
And so it is very interesting that this memory arrived to me as I watched Director Kasi Lemmons' "Harriet," her biopic of the slave turned abolitionist freedom fighter Harriet Tubman. While an undeniably effective film, it is also an oddly shallow one as well, especially considering the subject matter, from the titular figure to the time period and American history through which she existed and ultimately shaped.
One would think (or at least I did) that any film about Harriet Tubman would be the sort of Oscar worthy (or more cynical viewers might brand as "Oscar bait") experience that would play as more lavish, stately, and epic...essentially the type of film that a historical figure and hero like Harriet Tubman would deserve. Yet, what Lemmons delivered is a film experience that oddly enough speaks more to the dominant cinematic language and landscape of the day: the superhero movie, and I have to admit, this approach simultaneously confused me while it also intrigued.
Kasi Lemmons' "Harriet" stars Cynthia Erivo as our legendary heroine, but beginning her story in 1848 Buckton, Maryland while as a slave named Minty. As the film opens, Minty, alongside her emancipated husband John Tubman (Zakary Momoh) approach slave/plantation master Edward Brodess (Michael Marunde) to request permission to begin a family and that any children would be born free. Not only is that request vehemently denied, plans have been made to sell Minty to another plantation owner thus separating her from her husband plus her brothers Henry and Robert (played by Antonio J. Bell and Joseph Lee Anderson, respectively), her sister Rachel (Deborah Ayorinde) and parents Rit and Ben Ross (played by Vanessa Bell Calloway and Clarke Peters).
Fueled by an unshakable resolve and refusal to be ripped away from her family and further enslaved and armed with an equally unshakable spiritual faith with God, which is revealed to her through hallucinations/premonitions brought on by her frequent fainting spells (created by a brutal head injury inflicted upon her as a child by a slave owner), Minty makes her escape from the plantation deep into the night.
Although she is relentlessly pursued and nearly captured by Edward Burgess' son, slave master Gideon Burgess (Joe Alwyn), Minty valiantly leaps into the rivers as a last ditch effort and soon finds herself, after washing ashore and then making a 100 ft journey, in Philadelphia, where she meets abolitionists William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), the wealthy Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monae), the organizers and "conductors" of the Underground Railroad Network and fin ally re-christens herself as a self-emancipated woman with the name Harriet Tubman.
Invigorated by her newfound freedom and emboldened by her refusal to be enslaved again combined with her determination to free her family, Harriet Tubman doggedly returns to Maryland over and over again to rescue and further emancipate the slaves, thus crippling the slave owners' businesses and further enraging Gideon, whose clutches she continuously evades, thus earning her the nickname of "Moses The Slave Stealer."
Stakes are raised further with the U.S. Congress' passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 which forces the Underground Railroad's re-location into Canada, making Harriet Tubman's rescue missions that much more perilous, and now with the deadly (and traitorous Black man) bounty hunter Bigger Long (Omar Dorsey) in cahoots with Gideon, feverishly on her trail. Yet, with each success, Harriet Tubman grows more intrepid, more fearless, bolder, braver and wholly uncompromising in her determination to live free or die.
Kasi Lemmons' "Harriet" is undeniably a gloriously presented production augmented by the always luscious visual palate from veteran Cinematographer John Toll as well as a rich, lustrous score from Composer Terence Blanchard. All of the film's performances are first rate and indeed beautifully anchored by Cynthia Erivo's measured, mournful fury. It is unquestionably an effective film, one that contains a certain power but for some reason throughout, I felt that there was something about the proceedings that felt to be a tad...off.
Again, perhaps as I thought about the possibilities of what a biopic film centered around Harriet Tubman could be, I was imagining something that did possess a certain emotional complexity that Lemmons film actually did not contain. There was something that felt to be more than a little simple or basic or so direct in its straightforwardness, that there was not any room for anything to delve underneath the surface of the plot...and for that matter, the film didn't seem to be remotely interested in delving into any deep waters whatsoever. And for whatever reasons, this was the point when it hit me that what I was watching felt to be more akin to an action film or more truthfully, a comic book origin story film, the type of film we have all become exceedingly educated with over these last ten years with the Marvel Comics films in particular.
Kasi Lemmons' "Harriet" is essentially the origin story of Harriet Tubman and is indeed structured as such. We see her beginnings, or at least the point at which she is beginning to make her crucial transformation into something larger than she may have ever imagined of herself.
We witness the moment of pivotal change from Minty into Harriet Tubman and how she eventually earns the descriptive moniker of "Moses The Slave Stealer" like Superman is known as the "Man Of Steel" or Batman as "The Dark Knight." Her fainting spell induced visions/premonitions from God are essentially her equivalent to Peter Parker's tingling "Spidey sense" alerting him to on-coming dangers. The members of the Underground Railroad secret society,a group which includes Frederick Douglass could be seen as a version of The Avengers of the Justice League. Watch how her wardrobe changes throughout the film from her slave clothing to the Harriet Tubman "costume" that features the smart fedora, long coat, smart satchel and accompanying loaded pistols. It is all there, turning the true, larger than life story of Harriet Tubman into "Harriet" our latest superhero film yet this time about a real life superhero that assisted greatly in saving the African -American race from the annihilation of slavery.
Admittedly, as engaged as I was, I really was unsure as to how much I actually liked this kind of a portrayal because just as my Mom was not willing to allow me to experience stories from the Bible as comic books, I seriously questioned if the story of Harriet Tubman could, would or should be possibly, or inadvertently, trivialized from this well-intentioned but potentially slight execution,. As I watched, the film made me feel that Lemmons was trying to create some sort of hybrid of Director John Singleton's "Rosewood" (1997), Director Steve McQueen's outstanding, artfully stark "12 Years A Slave" (2013), and the brutally pulpy, morally righteous rage of Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" (2012), where her interpretation of Harriet Tubman was some kind of Civil War version of Shaft or Foxy Brown, cinematic icons of the 1970's Blaxploitation era.
And yet, as I questioned, I did remember an interview with Tarantino around the time of the release of "Django Unchained" when he remarked that he felt that sometimes the tone of the exploitation film is better suited and therefore woud reach a greater sense of truth about difficult subject matter than the classy, Hollywood epic because the exploitation film would indeed get down and dirty where the Oscar hopeful would more than likely be more tentative in getting its cinematic hands considerably messy.
I have to say there is some truth to that assessment because I would not be surprised if Kasi Lemmons originally questioned as to how to make the story of Harriet Tubman resonate powerfully in the 21st century and not make her film feel like a dusty History lesson during a time when it feels that knowing one's history is not en vogue. Perhaps what I was watching within "Harriet" was a directorial choice, something 100% intentional...
There is no question as to Kasi Lemmons' filmmaking skill, talent and audacity, especially as evidenced in her previous films, which include her excellent debut feature "Eve's Bayou" (1997) and the sensational "Talk To Me" (2007). She more than understands the language of cinema, how it works and operates and perhaps, seeing the tenor of the current cinematic times, she made a purposeful decision to meet the audience where it exists and deliver her experience in the dominant cinematic language we understand.
"Harriet" is a visceral experience, a slave epic that works as a chase film that often recalls Director Andrew Davis' "The Fugitive" (1993), as well as a film of female empowerment in the #MeToo era (the film could also work as a companion piece to television's "The Handmaid's Tale"), and a ferocious war cry in the Black Lives Matter era, therefore making the film deceptively simplistic.
I am reminded of Producer George Lucas and Director Anthony Hemingway's underseen "Red Tails" (2012), their film about the all African-American Tuskegee Airmen, where the film's tone harkened back to the corny, stilted style of 1940's war films but this time, we were graced with the undeniably magnetic images of young, attractive Black men in positions of power, valiantly driving the engine of the film and being the stars of the type of gorgeously realized aerial dogfights this side of Lucas' own "Star Wars" series. It was the approach that set the stage to first entertain and then, hopefully inspire audiences to discover more and delve deeper once we exited the theaters.
With Lemmons' "Harriet," I am feeling that maybe this was her intent. To first entertain, and to then inspire. And I have to say, that is precisely what I did after leaving the film, which I did happen to screen with my Mom...and what we discovered afterwards was stupendously fascinating and enlightening.
On our way home from the film, my Mom mentioned that she had been unfamiliar with the name of William Still and that perhaps we should look him up. As depicted in the film, Still was a free Black man who, in Philadelphia, chronicled the names, dates and experiences of every escaped and emancipated slave who arrived, all culminated and compiled in The Underground Railroad Records (published 1872), and which incidentally can be easily found on-line and I will happily post a link at the conclusion of this review for you.
To read the real words in a journal that inexplicably still exists in 2019 is stunning and profoundly humbling, and in some ways, lends itself to Kasi Lemmons (or any other willing filmmaker) to bring the story of William Still and the creation and survival of his journals to the big screen...and coming to this realization, I could see more greatly just how potent Lemmons' "Harriet" actually is. It INSPIRED me and my Mom to seek, to learn more and to even view our existence through an even wider lens than before. If that was Kasi Lemmons intent, then mission accomplished and then some,
Even so, "Harriet" is not a flawless experience as there are scenes that ring as inauthentic, some characters that are not terribly well drawn and I do greatly question why the film's most graphically violent moment occurs between a Black man and a Black woman.
Yet, I did appreciate how Lemmons' did showcase the business of slavery and therefore, the unforgivable inhumanity of that business that treated human beings as less than furniture. I appreciated how Lemmons did present the horrors of White supremacy in language that clearly mirrors words spoken today as well as the relentless psychological damage of slavery which created a sense of distrust within African-Americans towards each other, a distrust that also exists to this very day.
And returning to William Still's The Underground Railroad Records, I present to you some of his own written impressions about the real Harriet Tubman:
"Harriet was a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South. Yet, in point of courage, shrewdness and disinterested exertions rescue her fellow-men, by making personal visits to Maryland among the slaves, she was without her equal.
Her success was wonderful...Great fears were entertained for her safety, but she seemed wholly devoid of personal fear. The idea of being captured by slave-hunters or slave-holders seemed never to enter her mind. She was apparently proof against all adversaries. While she thus manifested such utter personal indifference, she was much more watchful with regard to those she was piloting...
...Of course Harriet was supreme, and her followers generally had full faith in her, and woud back up any word she might utter...It is obvious enough, however, that her success in going into Maryland as she did, was attributable to her adventurous spirit and utter disregard of consequences. Her like it is probable was never known before or since."
If Kasi Lemmons captured anything at all, she indeed captured that essence and impression in full, the essence and impression of a woman who eventually emerged and lived her life as a real world superhero. And in doing so, maybe this was the correct artistic approach to "Harriet" after all.
SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT
Here is the link to The Underground Railroad Records...
https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil
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