Emancipation (2022)

 

            I had been seeing commercials for “Emancipation” for a while and it did not strike me as a war movie.  I have to thank Stephen Dickerson for letting me know it is.  The movie was directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Tears of the Sun”).  It was loosely based on the slave named Gordon.  Gordon was the subject of the famous photo of a slave whose back is scarred with whippings.  The photo appeared in 1863 and brought the horrors of slavery to naïve Northerners.  The movie was originally slated to be filmed in Georgia and then the Election Integrity Act of 2021 was passed.  That is the law that makes it more difficult for minorities to vote in Georgia.  It includes the provision that free water can not be given to people waiting in line to vote.  Fuqua and star Will Smith pulled the production and moved to Louisiana.  The film cost $120 million ($35 million was Smith’s salary).  Apple + paid $130 million to stream it.  Was it worth it?

            The movie leads with a title card informing that the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued.  350,000 slaves in Louisiana now had a choice between remaining slaves and waiting for the Union army to liberate them or escaping to Union lines.  “Based on a true story” will have you wondering throughout.  Peter (Smith) is living on a plantation with his wife and four kids.  He gets conscripted for labor for the army.  “I will come back to you.”  He is put to work building a railroad.  There are two villainous officers who are begging for satisfying deaths.  And there is a slave-hunter who works for the Confederates named Fassel (Ben Foster).  He is vile, but good at catching runaways.  He has dogs that can track any runner.  Peter manages to escape into the swamp with the dogs and Fassel and his two henchmen (one is a black!) on his trail.  It’s five days to reach Grant’s army and it will be an eventful trek.  One of those events is a fight with an alligator.  (Did they add that scene when they moved filming to Louisiana?)  There are occasional glimpses of his family back on the plantation to remind us why he has to succeed.  There is the rare glimpse of a cotton gin in operation.  Peter manages to reach the Union army and joins an all-black unit called the 1^st Louisiana Native Guards.  Before he uniforms up, he is photographed shirtless with the scars on his back from floggings.  The army is involved in the Port Hudson campaign.  Port Hudson is a fort with entrenchments.  It is a very tough nut to crack.  The Guards are sent as cannon fodder (literally) to break into the fort.  I don’t need to spoiler alert that Peter survives and gets back to his family.  This is an anti-slavery movie, not an anti-war movie.

            This is Will Smith’s first appearance on the screen since the infamous slapping incident.  The movie was made before the incident and I’m sure it was meant to be Oscar bait.  However, based on the damage to Smith’s reputation in Hollywood, Adam Sandler has a better chance at an Oscar.  Smith is a good actor and he is fine in the role.  But not Best Actor fine.  His performance smacks of desperation to put the slap behind him.  He is too  sincere as Peter.  I never was able to shake the feeling that I was watching an actor.  He doesn’t crack a smile the entire film, so don’t expect “Gone with the Wind”.  Foster was a good choice for Fassel.  He’s played villains effectively in the past. His Fassel is scarily malevolent.  Besides Foster and Smith, the rest of the cast is unknowns.  Only Fassel and Peter are well-developed characters.  For instance, we are not even getting a clue to why a black man would be working as a slave hunter.

The movie makes it clear how bad slavery is.  Heads on stakes.  Branding the cheek of runaways.  And then there is the fact that every white Southerner in the movie is evil.  Hell, a little white girl rats him out.  I have no problem with laying it on thick because this movie is much closer to reality than GWTW.  The unreality comes in the escape sequence.  For narrative purposes Fassel has to stay on his heels until the inevitable showdown.  I don’t have to tell you that Fassel and his cronies get their just reward.  But since Peter is smart and is escaping through a swamp, it is hard to believe the dogs can track him.  He even finds a pirogue (a Cajun canoe) to row across a river.  Those dogs must have had access to satellites.

            “Emancipation” becomes a war movie in the last act.  The attack on Port Hudson is a big set piece with lots of gore.  Like in every war movie set in the cannon days (except “Gettysburg”), the special effects department sets off explosions in the ground to replicate cannon fire.  It’s as though the Rebels had mortars (the small kind).  It apparently is hard to show cannister.  The set is excellent and overhead shots give the audience the bigger picture.  And the understanding that a frontal attack will be harder than that of “Glory”.  Actually, this scene reminded me more of crossing no man’s land with "The Lost Battalion".  The cinematography is a standout.  Fuqua uses a lot of tracking shots. You need to know that the movie is so desaturated that it is basically a black and white movie.  That was a gutsy move considering many people will turn the movie off once they realize it.  And it was even more gutsy for Apple + to pay $130 million for a black and white movie

            The most memorable thing about “Emancipation” is it is very religious.  Peter is constantly making references to God.  But that is balanced a bit.  In the railroad camp, there is a preacher quoting the Bible to encourage the slaves to accept their lot in life. Peter represents the New Testament, the preacher is Old Testament.  When Peter bucks up the other slaves, another slave questions how exactly is God with them?  Good question.

            I didn’t subscribe to Apple + to see this movie.  I got it to see “Greyhound” and hang onto it until “Masters of the Air”.  In between, I get the occasional war movie like
“Emancipation”.  I didn’t have to go to a theater to see it.  Considering a trip to the theater is about the price of one month of Apple+, I welcome war movies on it.  “Emancipation” is a decent movie, but it falls short of being great.

GRADE  =  C+

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  We do know a little about Gordon.  He escaped from his plantation after taking two months to recover from his severe whipping.  The overseer would rub salt into the wounds.  It is very doubtful that his journey was like that of Peter.  For instance, he didn’t fight an alligator.  He may have been chased, but the Fassel character is fictional.  The movie uses him to inform us that the racism of whites was passed down generation to generation.  This is done through Fassel’s campfire story of his father killing a slave who had ideas about being equal to whites.  The little girl who calls the dogs, so to speak, emphasizes this theme. 

Gordon did not spend time working for the Confederate army.  He did get to the Union army and was enlisted in the 1^st Louisiana Native Guards.  This unit had been formed in New Orleans and consisted of mostly runaway slaves.  It was one of the first all-black units in the Army.  The unit faced substantial racism from white soldiers and officers.  The unit was used mainly for manual labor like cutting down trees, building bridges, and digging fortifications.  (Gee, I wonder why the movie did not show this.)  It was not thought to be capable of fighting.  In 1863, it participated in the Port Hudson campaign.  The Confederate fort was located on the Mississippi River just north of Baton Rouge.  Port Hudson and Vicksburg deprived the Union navy of clear sailing on the river.  The fort was an imposing target.  The Yankees laid siege to it, but the Union general did not want to wait for starvation to force surrender.  On May 27, he launched uncoordinated attacks on the fort.  When one of these failed, the 1^st Louisiana Native Guards were called in to reinforce the attack.  The battle was similar to that of the movie in that it was futile.  The Rebels used cannons with cannister and grapeshot and each soldier had three rifles to increase their firepower.  The fact that the 1^st faced this maelstrom bravely helped change some attitudes toward black soldiers.  The movie implies that Peter led an attack that succeeded.  The truth is that the fort was not taken by assault. The fort did not surrender until the fall of Vicksburg on July 4,  We don’t know what happened to Gordon after this.

            The movie does a nifty job incorporating the famous photo into Peter’s story.  The photo is recreated with fidelity.  It was captioned “The Scourged Black” and was first published in Harper’s Weekly.  Abolitionists used it in their campaign to get northerners to support emancipation.  They called the man in the photo “Whipped Peter”.   We don’t know if Gordon had a family and whether he got back to them.  The films portrayal of a slave’s experiences is realistic.  The South did conscript slaves for work details.  Although the north did have a great advantage in military age men, the south could use their slaves to do work that would then free up soldiers to fight.