The Great Debaters
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Movie Reviews of The Great Debaters
Movie Review: Realistic History Portrayal, Powerful Dramatic Presentation
Summary: 5 Stars
I first heard about THE GREAT DEBATERS when my friend and I were browsing through the antique shops of Arcadia, LA. The owner of one of those shops told me that several pieces of furniture out of her store had been purchased to use in the movie. That was fascinating. When you watch the movie, you'll have so much to see -- all the rich historical drama and good acting of a suspense-filled plot -- that you may not notice the authenticty of the set, including the furniture. If you buy the DVD, you will have enough interesting things to watch again and again.
It is sad to realize how things were in the 1930's in the part of the world where I live. This movie portrays the horrible way black people were treated. This story of Melvin B. Tolson, played by Denzel Washington, gives background information about the Civil Rights movement. Tolson's 1935 debate club at Wiley College, Marshall, Texas, stunned the nation. (I won't give the end of the plot away!)
Langston Hughes, the famous poet and playwright who authored A RAISIN IN THE SUN (A Raisin in the Sun), visited Wiley College and said, "Melvin Tolson is the most famous Negro professor in the Southwest. Students all over that part of the world speak of him, revere him, remember him and love him." Tolson was active on many levels. In real life he was an English and speech professor, labor organizer, modern poet, novelist, debate coach, drama coach, and football coach! His methods were radical. At times while I watched the movie, I was anxious about some of his behavior as played by Denzel Washington. It is amazing that this man was not lynched.
Instead, the professor did just fine and eventually left Wiley College to teach in Oklahoma. Wiley College, located in east Texas between Dallas and Shreveport, is doing fine too. In fact, it continues to thrive and has one of th best teacher-student ratios in the nation.
I digress. Back to the movie, I admired the writers and producers, along with Denzel Washington (the director) for having the courage to tell the truth. The movie protrays painfully true pictures of both blacks and whites of the time. It shows the oppression of intelligent black people by uneducated white people. It also shows the conflicts within a young black man who struggled with issues related to moving into adulthood. The pain he caused a young woman is played with sensitivity.
To modern educators, the students may have seemed wooden in their debates. The professor rehearsed the students and taught them by rote.
In our time, we are so eager to make all our students independent thinkers that we do not achieve the discipline that made these debaters successful.
THE GREAT DEBATERS is much more than a movie about social causes. It is a beautifully acted and produced work of art.
Movie Review: A film to watch with your kids and grandkids and talk about with them
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this movie very much. Yes, I admit that I have enjoyed Denzel Washington on the screen since his St. Elsewhere days, but this movie offers so much beyond Denzel's very fine performance.
This story is adapted from the true story set in 1935 of Wiley College, a small but excellent college for African-American students (although that term did not exist at the time of the story). The characters on the team and the events are adapted (some are real, others are composites, some made up) to tell a powerful story. Does it matter that the climactic battle with Harvard in the movie was against USC in real life? And the Samantha Booke character is based on the real life Henrietta Wells who was on the 1930 debate team.
Washington plays Melvin B. Tolson, who was the real life debate coach. Actually, he was a brilliant poet and political activist who taught debate to use it as a tool in his activism. What I really enjoyed about this portrayal of Tolson is that it neither denies his activism nor wears his radical views on its sleeve. These views are acknowledged and put in the context of the social struggle for racial and economic equality for African Americans. The issues the movie takes on are not about abstract theory, but the fight of those a generation from slavery to teach young brilliant minds and give them the tools they need to join the struggle for equality. I found the reminders of what life in Texas (and American generally) in 1935 to be powerful and important to remember. In fact, I think it is incredibly important to show this to young people who have never seen racism so plainly.
Do not think that because this is about a debate team that it is a dull or abstract movie. This is a passionate, fiery film that involves us emotionally while engaging us in our own intellectual debate with the film, with our own ideas, with out views about how society as evolved since the 1930s. The characters are well drawn and finely portrayed.
Forest Whitaker is terrific as Dr. James Farmer Sr. who ran Wiley in those years and was the father of the young 14 year old debater who grew up to found C.O.R.E. and lived a life committed to securing social justice for African Americans. Nate Parker plays Henry Lowe in a way that reflects the character's intelligence, talent, and fragile emotional state. Jurnee Smollett gives Samantha Booke intelligence, fire, and wit to spare. John Heard is fine in the thankless job of the sheriff doing the bidding of the local racist powers that be. And of course, Denzel Washington is superb as an actor in this movie, but deserves real praise as its director. Oprah Winfrey produced it and deserves credit for giving us a moving and informative film.
Recommended.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Movie Review: Words - both spoken and written - can wield great power
Summary: 5 Stars
The Great Debaters was inspired by the true story of the debate team at Wiley College, an African-American college that was originally created in 1873 by the "Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church." Their goal was to help educate and prepare newly-freed slaves as they made the difficult transition into a new life.
Now, with that as a historical backdrop, you know "The Great Debaters" has got to be rich in history, import, meaning and cultural significance. And it is.
Professor Tolson (played by Denzel Washington) started coaching his now-famous debate team in 1929 and the movie is set in the year 1935, when 40 college kids would show up to audition for the four coveted spots on his team. If this movie were just another "academic cinderella story" it'd be interesting and entertaining but The Great Debaters is so much more than that.
Born and raised in southeastern Virginia, I know a little bit about what racism looked like in the 1960s. This movie gave me a keyhole peak at racism in the 1930s and it was something I'll not soon forget. The scene depicting Forest Whitaker's confrontation (over a lost pig) with two no-account white racists was very believable and powerful and it was equally memorable and disturbing.
Another scene that showed a lynching was probably the most haunting scene and yet witnessing that horrible event proved to be a catalyst for one of the debaters.
If you go online and do a little background reading, you'll learn that some artistic license was exercised in telling the story of The Great Debaters (for instance, in 1935, they won a debate against University of Southern California; they never debated Harvard). However, for the most part, the story is good and true and very worthwhile.
I don't buy a lot of DVDs but this is one movie I'd like to own. Powerful story and very well-told. And speaking as a history snob, the background details (the depiction of the 1930s time period) were also very well done and accurate.
And an important PS to this movie review: According to an article in the New York Times (published Dec. 5, 2007), Wiley College has been struggling for years to keep their doors open, and in recent years, that struggle has become even more severe. The article also states that Wiley has not had the financial wherewithal to sponsor a debate team for many years. Hopefully "The Great Debaters" will effect a sea-change in this historic college's financial fortunes.
Movie Review: Your Mind Is A Weapon
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is more than a movie about debaters. Inspired by a true story, it contains some events of how African-Americans lived during the 1930s amidst the atmosphere of random lynchings.
Melvin B. Tolson (portrayed by Denzel Washington) was an educated professor at Wiley College (in the rural south) by day and a human rights radical by night. Not even his wife (portrayed by Kimberly Elise) knew of his activism. The quartet of intelligent debaters each had their own baggage to carry. Henry Lowe (portrayed by Nate Parker) liked juke joints, "holy wine" and the ladies. Samantha Booke (portrayed by Jurnee Smollett) wanted to be a lawyer and knew it was an uphill climb. James Farmer, Jr. (portrayed by Denzel Whitaker) seemed to seek the approval of his father (a Ph.D. scholar and minister who spoke seven languages; portrayed by Forest Whitaker); Junior had witnessed his father being degraded by a White man because James, Sr. had accidentally killed the man's pig with his car; Junior also witnessed the strength of his father standing up to the sheriff and convincing him to release Professor Tolson from jail after being arrested for holding a meeting to organize sharecroppers (both Black and White) "to make things right" against the farm bosses, after which Junior told the man "that pig wasn't worth $25, you owe my father some money." The team became a trio when Hamilton Burgess (portrayed by Jermaine Williams) withdrew because his father disapproved of Professor Tolson's rumored "communist" political beliefs - he was at Wiley College "to be educated, not investigated."
Although this debate team had a record of 10-1, their crowning glory came when they won against the Harvard debate team on the subject of civil disobedience. It did not escape my attention the character named Wilson (portrayed by Damien Leake) who appeared briefly near the end of the movie. He was the butler/attendant for the three Wiley College students as they were preparing for their Harvard debate. Despite his position, his high intelligence showed when he inserted himself into their conversation nonchalantly by saying "Satyagraha from the Sanskrit meaning truth and fairness."
The Wiley College debaters' mantra: Who's the judge? The judge is God. Why is he God? Because he decides who wins or loses, not my opponent. Who is your opponent? He doesn't exist. Why doesn't he exist? Because he is merely a dissension portion of the truth I speak.
Movie Review: Stirring reminder of Jim Crow and the courage of those who overcame it
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie takes us back to an ugly time in U.S. history -- the Jim Crow era. In a segregated little town in Texas, the African American teachers and students of tiny Wiley College pursue excellence in education and recruit a world-class debate team, good enough to take on the debaters of Harvard and win.
I'm not sure how much of this movie is fact and how much fiction but it pushed all the right buttons with me. Denzel Washington, who directed, plays the debate coach Melvin Tolson. He is fiercely intelligent, proud, politically active, angry, fearless and demanding. Washington makes him truly convincing. His debate team includes a 14-year-old budding genius and a brave young woman breaking gender and race barriers as well as a philanderer with a roving eye. Forest Whitaker plays the 14 year-old's father, a preacher with an angry exterior but a soft heart.
The movie explicitly shows the humiliations blacks suffered living in the South, including a horrific lynching. It portrays the self-hatred such scenes inspired in blacks who had to suffer them without the power to do anything about them.
One interesting aspect for me is the movie's constant refrain that education is the way out of this poverty and humiliation. By training their intellects, African Americans can reclaim their autonomy, confront their oppressors and build a better life, the movie argues.
I am afraid this lesson has been lost somewhere along the way. In those days, people paid good money to watch colleges debates and they were even boradcast on national radio. Today, we're all about glorifying rap singers and basketball players. All our communities, but especially the African American community, are the poorer because of it.
The documentary accompanying this movie shows some of the real-life characters who inspired it. You listen to those fierce, passionate, articulate, educated voices and you not only are filled with admiration for them but you also bemoan the state we've reached now.
This movie isn't perfect. It's a little formulaic perhaps. But its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. It's good entertainment that also carries a message we need to hear.