Ava DuVernay at SXSW: “King Was a Badass Who’s Been Homogenized.”“I came to realize that

Ava DuVernay at SXSW: “King Was a Badass Who’s Been Homogenized.”“I came to realize that those dreams I was dreaming [for previous films] were too small,“ she explained, to rousing applause. “If your dream only includes you, it’s too small.” Other challenges—such as the fact that she could not use Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual speeches and the script’s female characters were barely present when she came onboard—required the vigilance of that intention. One of the major changes she oversaw was fleshing out the roles of women like Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo) and Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey). “Women in their movement never got their due. The intellectual work of women in the movement is always forgotten,” explained DuVernay.When the film opened and started drawing buzz, critical praise, and awards—those marks of filmmaking success that DuVernay had previously wanted so much—she enjoyed the ride. She had “food like I’ve never put in my mouth” at the Legends Ball at Oprah’s (very nice) house with “all the legends, real people from the march.” She took note that Selma was the only current film to have a “100 fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. She was exhilarated to screen Selma for the Obamas at the White House, knowing that the first film to ever screen there was The Birth of a Nation.“Obviously film studios aren’t lining up to make movies about Black protagonists being autonomous and independent and drivers of their lives… King was a badass who’s been homogenized. My job was to reconstruct that. There should be 10 more films about King. It is daunting to approach the epic subject.”DuVernay is equally pragmatic about the need to bring diverse experiences to wider audiences. “Images affect the way we see ourselves and the way we are seen,” she added. “That has to expand by any means necessary. For women of all races. The key is just to begin.”Read the full piece here -- source link

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