2015
‘City of Roses’
Volume XXXXV, Number 2
special edition
D R R . M ARTIN
UTHER
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ARTIN L Special
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coverage inside
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Wednesday • January 14, 2015
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Riveting and Inspiring
PHOTO BY A TSUSHI N ISHIJIMA /P ARAMOUNT P ICTURES
David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. and Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King in ‘Selma,’ the major motion picture that just opened in Portland theaters and
across the country. The movie is poised to become of the most critically and popularly lauded films of the year.
‘Selma’ wisely depicts
struggle for civil rights
D ARLEEN O RTEGA
( COPY , ITALICS AT END )
I long for more films that attempt to tell the
stories of genuine courage and struggle and
sacrifice that are the stuff of all the most
important gains in civil rights for minorities
and women and LGBTQ people and others
who are marginalized. Such stories get far
less attention than they deserve. But every
time a film comes out that purports to deal
with such topics, I brace for disappointment.
Such films nearly always oversimplify the
struggles depicted, so that the villains are
BY
cartoonish or the struggles themselves more
easily resolved than they ever can be in real
life.
What a treat, then, to watch “Selma”—
and by a treat, I mean that I was riveted and
inspired, and that I wept through most of it.
For once, I found an insightful depiction of
what working for social justice looks like.
And what it looks like is broken bodies, fear,
treachery, risk, mistakes, choices between
terrible options, and unthinkable sacrifice.
And it involves many heroes, not just one.
The film has an interesting back story. It
O PINIONATED
J UDGE
was stalled in development for several years,
and several well-known directors signed on
and then dropped the project. Its star, David
Oyelowo, felt called to play Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. back in 2007, but some of the early
directors were not convinced he was right for
the role. By the time director Lee Daniels
became the fourth director to abandon the
project, Oyelowo had been cast, and it was
he who convinced the producers to bring on
Ava DuVernay as director. She is one of very
few women of any color to get the opportu-
nity to helm a major Hollywood studio project
BY J UDGE
D ARLEEN O RTEGA
and, if there is any justice in Hollywood (dare
I hold my breath?) is poised to become the
first African-American woman to win an Oscar
nod. And she hails from the world of inde-
pendent film.
I have to believe that DuVernay’s per-
spective and experiences helped this project.
The usual mix of leadership hasn’t been able
to pull off a film like this; all the cards of how
a Hollywood film gets made are stacked
against the necessary clarity of vision. The
continued
on page 41