Post by guest on May 25, 2008 16:13:38 GMT -5
Execution film has message of hope
Sun May 25, 2008 3:45 am (PDT)
Execution film has message of hope
By Mark Savage
Entertainment reporter, BBC News, in Cannes
On 5 March, 1945, Lena Baker was strapped into the electric chair and
put to death in the US state of Georgia.
The 44-year-old African-American maid had been convicted of murdering
her employer, Ernest Knight, by an all-male, all-white jury in a
trial that lasted just one day.
In court, Baker said she had shot Knight in self-defence after she
told him she was quitting her job and he, enraged, had imprisoned and
threatened her with a branding iron.
As she was led to her death, the mother of three still professed her
innocence, saying: "What I done, I did in self-defence, or I would
have been killed myself."
The case lay largely forgotten for 60 years until, in August 2005,
Baker's family won an apology from the Georgia Board Of Pardons and
Paroles.
They admitted the decision to deny Baker clemency was a "grievous
error" and that a verdict of manslaughter, which did not carry the
death penalty, would have been more appropriate.
Baker's story has now been turned into a film, which was showing out
of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Struggle
Featuring a cast of strong Hollywood character actors, including
Peter Coyote (ET, Erin Brockovich) and Beverly Todd (Crash, The
Bucket List), it not only aims to bring the miscarriage of justice to
wider attention - but to rejuvenate Georgia's economy.
Writer and director Ralph Wilcox said it was important to him that
the film not be a retread of racial dramas like To Kill A
Mockingbird, which shares an equally pivotal courtroom scene.
"I worked very hard not make it a project of race - blacks and whites
and that struggle in the South - because we already know that story,"
he says.
"It is domestic abuse, it is addiction, it is fate, it is the issue
of the death penalty."
This film's lesson is that, messed-up or not, you have rights as a
human being, you have civil rights under the law
Peter Coyote
Coyote, who plays Baker's abusive employer, says it was important to
him that she was shown to be "a conflicted and messed-up woman" who
drank, fell into prostitution and left her children.
"When white people make movies about black people, I call them 'good
Negro movies,'" he says.
"In a movie like The Green Mile, the protagonist is so good it's like
Jesus. And in a way, the movie is saying: 'Do you know how bad the
people have to be to kill Jesus, to kill this person?'
"It's a funny way of letting people off the hook, because if you're
bigoted against this pure, noble, uncomplicated character you've got
to be outside the human community."
"To me, this film's lesson is that, messed-up or not, you have rights
as a human being, you have civil rights under the law and you don't
exclude yourself from the human community by mistakes."
Wilcox says adds that it is not just the African-American characters
who are painted as complex human beings.
"Michael Baker plays the sheriff who was not, you know, that vilified
image that you typically expect in the South.
"He watched this girl grow up, even when she got into prostitution,
and ultimately he was the one who drove her to her execution.
"This man suffered. It tore him up, and I think that the moment we
start to destroy these stereotypes and understand that we are all
tied together in a single garment of destiny, we are really going to
start to see revolutionary changes."
It is apparent from the earnest, passionate way the film-makers talk
about The Lena Baker Story talk about the film that it was a project
they held very close to their hearts.
But the Lena Baker Story does not end with the film. Wilcox's
decision to shoot the movie in Georgia has led to a project that
echoes the message of redemption and renewal.
The director negotiated state funding and grants to make the movie,
and hired many locals to work as crew, or apprentices to
professionals on his film.
Since the project wrapped, he and his fiancee Brenda Cheatem (an
educator he met during filming) have continued that work, creating a
nascent film studio in the Deep South.
"We are an area of limited career choices," says Cheatem, "but now we
have a certificate programme at two area colleges, and we train in
lights camera, sound, hair and make-up - all the disciplines of the
film and television industry."
"I've spent a lot of time in the South and, let me tell you, there
were a lot of people that 25 years ago would never conceive of
calling a black man 'Mister'," says Coyote.
"Now they are calling Ralph 'Mister Wilcox' and they are getting on
this train which he has started trying to pull out of the station.
"It's generating employment and revenue for this little backward
place which has lost it's cotton and lost it's tobacco.
"It's an element of the story I'm proud of and it certainly had a lot
to do with my supporting the project."
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/7417459.stm
Published: 2008/05/24 22:55:24 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sun May 25, 2008 3:45 am (PDT)
Execution film has message of hope
By Mark Savage
Entertainment reporter, BBC News, in Cannes
On 5 March, 1945, Lena Baker was strapped into the electric chair and
put to death in the US state of Georgia.
The 44-year-old African-American maid had been convicted of murdering
her employer, Ernest Knight, by an all-male, all-white jury in a
trial that lasted just one day.
In court, Baker said she had shot Knight in self-defence after she
told him she was quitting her job and he, enraged, had imprisoned and
threatened her with a branding iron.
As she was led to her death, the mother of three still professed her
innocence, saying: "What I done, I did in self-defence, or I would
have been killed myself."
The case lay largely forgotten for 60 years until, in August 2005,
Baker's family won an apology from the Georgia Board Of Pardons and
Paroles.
They admitted the decision to deny Baker clemency was a "grievous
error" and that a verdict of manslaughter, which did not carry the
death penalty, would have been more appropriate.
Baker's story has now been turned into a film, which was showing out
of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Struggle
Featuring a cast of strong Hollywood character actors, including
Peter Coyote (ET, Erin Brockovich) and Beverly Todd (Crash, The
Bucket List), it not only aims to bring the miscarriage of justice to
wider attention - but to rejuvenate Georgia's economy.
Writer and director Ralph Wilcox said it was important to him that
the film not be a retread of racial dramas like To Kill A
Mockingbird, which shares an equally pivotal courtroom scene.
"I worked very hard not make it a project of race - blacks and whites
and that struggle in the South - because we already know that story,"
he says.
"It is domestic abuse, it is addiction, it is fate, it is the issue
of the death penalty."
This film's lesson is that, messed-up or not, you have rights as a
human being, you have civil rights under the law
Peter Coyote
Coyote, who plays Baker's abusive employer, says it was important to
him that she was shown to be "a conflicted and messed-up woman" who
drank, fell into prostitution and left her children.
"When white people make movies about black people, I call them 'good
Negro movies,'" he says.
"In a movie like The Green Mile, the protagonist is so good it's like
Jesus. And in a way, the movie is saying: 'Do you know how bad the
people have to be to kill Jesus, to kill this person?'
"It's a funny way of letting people off the hook, because if you're
bigoted against this pure, noble, uncomplicated character you've got
to be outside the human community."
"To me, this film's lesson is that, messed-up or not, you have rights
as a human being, you have civil rights under the law and you don't
exclude yourself from the human community by mistakes."
Wilcox says adds that it is not just the African-American characters
who are painted as complex human beings.
"Michael Baker plays the sheriff who was not, you know, that vilified
image that you typically expect in the South.
"He watched this girl grow up, even when she got into prostitution,
and ultimately he was the one who drove her to her execution.
"This man suffered. It tore him up, and I think that the moment we
start to destroy these stereotypes and understand that we are all
tied together in a single garment of destiny, we are really going to
start to see revolutionary changes."
It is apparent from the earnest, passionate way the film-makers talk
about The Lena Baker Story talk about the film that it was a project
they held very close to their hearts.
But the Lena Baker Story does not end with the film. Wilcox's
decision to shoot the movie in Georgia has led to a project that
echoes the message of redemption and renewal.
The director negotiated state funding and grants to make the movie,
and hired many locals to work as crew, or apprentices to
professionals on his film.
Since the project wrapped, he and his fiancee Brenda Cheatem (an
educator he met during filming) have continued that work, creating a
nascent film studio in the Deep South.
"We are an area of limited career choices," says Cheatem, "but now we
have a certificate programme at two area colleges, and we train in
lights camera, sound, hair and make-up - all the disciplines of the
film and television industry."
"I've spent a lot of time in the South and, let me tell you, there
were a lot of people that 25 years ago would never conceive of
calling a black man 'Mister'," says Coyote.
"Now they are calling Ralph 'Mister Wilcox' and they are getting on
this train which he has started trying to pull out of the station.
"It's generating employment and revenue for this little backward
place which has lost it's cotton and lost it's tobacco.
"It's an element of the story I'm proud of and it certainly had a lot
to do with my supporting the project."
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/7417459.stm
Published: 2008/05/24 22:55:24 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]