Last night, Larry and I went to see Lee
Daniels’ new film, The Butler at Fort
Lauderdale’s Gateway Theater. The Gateway, a vintage theater established in
1951 whose lobby features classic film stills from Hollywood’s “Golden Era,”
seemed the perfect venue at which to see a star-studded film with historic
subject matter. Having been moved by Daniels’ Precious in a small movie house in Claremont CA during its run in
2009, having listened to good reviews about the film from elder family members
who lived through the eras it depicts, and knowing that the film featured
Colman Domingo, an actor whom I greatly admire, my expectations of the film
were quite high. (I’ve been a fan of Domingo’s work since 2004, when I was
fortunate to see him perform in three Bay Area productions within the space of
about a year: a workshop production of his rousing and heartfelt one-man show A Boy and His Soul at Thick Description,
his admirable ensemble performance in the documentary play The People’s Temple at Berkeley Rep, as well as a fabulously supple,
precise, dynamic performance as harlequin-clad Lavatche at CalShakes’ 2004
production of All’s Well that Ends Well.
Domingo’s brilliance building the scene-stealing foppish clown with every subtly
responsive vocal inflection, vivid yet pliable facial expression, and
spontaneous physical gesture that harmonized specificity of the joints with
lithe intentional muscularity remains one of my absolute favorite Shakespearean
performances to date. In fact, I still share anecdotes about Domingo’s
simultaneous illuminative character creation and generous ensemble playing in
these stage moments when I teach Introductory Acting, because to me they serve
as the perfect example of how an actor can electrify the stage even in a small
role. At any rate, back to my review of The
Butler…)
Loosely and liberally based on the life of
Eugene Allen, The Butler relays the
story of Cecil Gaines, who served as member of the White House staff for more
than three decades. Set first in 1929, the film opens with a potently violent
scene from Gaines’ childhood, during which time he worked as a farmhand on a Macon
Georgia cotton plantation. Initially shocking the viewer with the off-screen
rape of Gaines’ mother (Mariah Carey) and murder of Gaines’ father (David
Banner) by a brutally nonchalant white landowner (Alex Pettyfer), the film uses
Gaines’ life story as a vehicle by which to chronicle the progression of the
U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the latter half of the 20th Century. Although
the violent events depicted in this first scene were fabricated for dramatic effect,
including them at the film’s start effectively sets the tone of the era, during
which black Americans endured not only legally-condoned discrimination and
oppression, but frequent actual violence at the hands of both private citizens
and white public law enforcers who nearly always went unpunished. Muscle-bound
Banner’s palpable love for his son and vulnerability throughout contrasted sharply
with the coldblooded exactness brought by British actor Pettyfer, whose
character, set off by a mere questioning gesture after the rape, kills Gaines’
father with an apathetic pistol shot to the forehead without reservation or
remorse.
