(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . DVD review: Harriet [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-01 Slavery was evil. At the same time, no person should be held accountable for the crimes of his ancestors. I expect there’s no disagreement on either of these two points here on Daily Kos. When a slave girl ran away, the plantation mistress didn’t feel bad for the departure of a person who in some very real ways was a part of the family. No, the mistress felt bad about $500 running away. If she lost all her slaves, she would be poor. The effort to erase that history has gained a lot of steam in recent years, and we should all be worried. Instead of the dehumanization of the slaves, history teachers are expected to say that slaves learned valuable skills in their bondage, that slavery was somehow beneficial to the slaves. That’s worse than saying nothing happened in Europe from 1939 to 1945. Actor Cynthia Erivo explains in a behind-the-scenes featurette for the 2019 film Harriet that if the history of slavery is erased, it will be an insult to the memory of those who died fighting for freedom. Little white boys and girls should not feel guilty about the slave holders in their family trees. But they need to know that history if they’re to grow up to be men and women who don’t compound the crimes of their ancestors. Although Harriet is a fairly accurate historical movie about the life of abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman and some viewers might assume they know her whole story, I will try to limit my plot summary here to the first act of the movie, which should be enough to help you understand the movie’s approach to the subject and decide if you do want to watch this movie. The movie starts out somewhat contemplatively, but if you stick with it through the first few minutes I’m sure you’ll be drawn in. Araminta “Minty” Ross Tubman (Erivo), living in Dorchester County, Maryland, is a slave married to a free black man, John Tubman (Zachary Momoh). According to the last will and testament of Atthow Pattison, Araminta’s mother was supposed to be freed. John has a letter from a lawyer, which Araminta presents to her owner, Edward Brodess (Michael Marunde). What happens next is not at all a spoiler, though it is a shocking disappointment to Araminta. I thought Edward was going to burn the letter. Nah, too much effort. The evil bastard just tears the letter in half, doesn’t bother to tear it into smaller pieces. It’s a crisis of faith for Araminta. She tells God that her owner is an evil man. But Reverend Green (Vondie Curtis-Hall) preaches that slaves must obey their masters in all earthly matters (Colossians 3:22). Edward’s son, Gideon (Joe Alwyn), just as wicked as his father, adds insult to injury by comparing slaves to farm pigs. Never mind that Araminta cared for Gideon when the young man was a sickly boy. Gideon hopes to one day forget Araminta’s name like he forgets the name of a pig sent to the butcher. But he won’t get to forget her name. Note that Gideon is a fictional character, but he rings true to life because there were many like him in real life. In real life, Araminta decided to run away because Edward died and the plan was to sell her off to a slave holder in a state further south. It simplifies the screenplay to have Edward’s son continue as Araminta’s slave master and not worry about when or how exactly Edward died, and it gives the viewers a clear-cut villain to hate. But the movie does not shy away from showing that a lot of society, including a few free blacks, were complicit in the villainy of slavery. Let’s be very clear that black collaborators were very few in number. Araminta Ross (Cynthia Erivo) arrives at William Still's office as the abolitionist (Leslie Odom, Jr.) checks a page hot off the press in the 2019 film Harriet. Gideon soon realizes that Araminta is running away, and suspects Reverend Green might be helping her, despite the preacher’s reputation as a supporter of slavery (that, it turns out, is a smoke screen). But the poor girl can’t get far without crossing a bridge over a river with a strong current. Soon Gideon and his helpers trap Araminta on the bridge. She tries to kill herself by jumping off the bridge into the river, she will either live free or die. Everyone gives her up for dead, including her husband. But she survives, and makes her way a hundred miles to Philadelphia, where William Still (Leslie Odom, Jr.) records some details of her extraordinary journey. Araminta decides she will from now henceforth be known as Harriet (in real life the renaming happened earlier). Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monáe) helps get Harriet cleaned up, and gives the newly free woman a pistol. Marie’s a composite of the various free black women who helped Harriet in her transition to freedom. Just this could have been the whole movie. But what happens next is far more interesting. Harriet wants to go back and free her whole family, but William doesn’t want to let her. I guess I should leave it at that. There is one point from the third act of the movie I do want to go over in detail. Harriet shoots a black slave tracker with her pistol. She needs to make another shot and soon, but she can’t, she has to seek cover and reload. While Thomas Jefferson might have been impressed with a gun like that, it’s still primitive compared to what is unfortunately all too available today. The movie runs two hours and five minutes, but to me it feels shorter than that. The DVD includes about fourteen minutes’ worth of deleted or extended scenes. These are interesting, most of them, but I do agree with the decision to leave them all out of the final cut. Cynthia Erivo (left) and Leslie Odom, Jr. on the set of the 2019 film Harriet as they portray Harriet Tubman and William Still, respectively. One of the deleted scenes gives the names of a few members of “the Committee” of the Underground Railroad. Some nice detail, but I guess the producers figured Frederick Douglass was the most important name introduced in that scene and viewers would easily figure out who he is for a later scene that did make it into the final cut without the benefit of the earlier scene. In another deleted scene, Reverend Green is arrested for the crime of having banned abolitionist material, the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. But isn’t that a violation of the preacher’s First Amendment rights? It’s almost as if the U. S. Constitution was not respected in the slave-holding states… Harriet is rated PG-13 “for thematic content throughout, violent material and language including racial epithets” like the one that some newspapers don’t print. Some of the violence is not shown, but rather we see the aftermath in the form of prominent scars on the bodies of people who didn’t deserve it. As for the people who had it coming, it can still be shocking to see them get the only justice they can't evade. The violence in this movie might be too intense for some children, and that would be a valid reason not to show them this movie. But then in some other way they must learn that there’s evil in our history, so that they don’t continue that evil. I give the movie ★★★★★, and the DVD ★★★★☆ and a half: besides the deleted scenes, the DVD has short behind-the-scenes featurettes and an audio commentary track. A longer documentary would have been nice, but just these special features are more than we usually get on DVDs these days. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/1/2183662/-DVD-review-Harriet Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/