By Dawn Chmielewski and Rollo Ross
January 20, 2024
Ava DuVernay attends the 14th Governors Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Jan 20 (Reuters) - For Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay, creating the biographical film “Origin” was an emotional quest that helped her connect with Isabel Wilkerson, the author of the book on which it was based.
“I made this film from a place of great joy and connection, Isabel was writing her book from a place of deep loss and connection, and what they both have in common was that it was a very emotional journey for both of us,” DuVernay told Reuters.
Wilkerson’s 2020 book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” defines racism in the United States as an aspect of a larger racial caste system. Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that divides society into social classes.
Drawing from Wilkerson’s non-fiction book, DuVernay’s narrative feature explores how the experiences of people of color in America connect to caste systems in India and the Holocaust in Germany.
“Any society in the world you think about, there’s someone at the top and someone at the bottom. If we understand that that’s the case, we can start to say, ‘how can we level it out?’” said DuVernay, who also directed "Selma," a film that explores Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s voting rights campaign.
Although she doesn’t believe inequity will be solved in her generation, she does believe that getting the message out there through her film and other means may someday cause a shift in the universe toward justice.
“Origin” follows author and journalist Wilkerson as she copes with a personal tragedy that serves as a catalyst for her to begin a global investigation into how caste has shaped society, including slavery and hierarchy.
The film stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman and Blair Underwood.
DuVernay created what she describes as less of a “straight adaptation” and more of a “companion piece” that’s an interpretation of Wilkerson’s life and book.
“We really were just allergic to permission. We just gave it to ourselves and allowed us to make the film we wanted to make, to be completely free in our expression,” she said.
For DuVernay, even if “Origin” is mostly recommended through word of mouth, it is important for the independent film distributed by Neon to be seen globally.
“We are fortunate that we were able to make it as an offering and whoever receives it, will receive it. That's it,” she said.
Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski, Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis
Review: ‘Origin’ is logically thought-provoking
By Sarah Gopaul
January 19, 2024
A scene from 'Origin' courtesy of Elevation Pictures
‘Origin’ is an adaptation of an American nonfiction book that suggests racial stratification in the United States is best understood as a caste system.
In 2020, spurred by the murder of Trayvon Martin, journalist and award-winning author Isabel Wilkerson released a book titled, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system — a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity — and uses India and Nazi Germany as more overt, non-U.S. examples of its impact. In Origin, Ava DuVernay attempts to bring Wilkerson’s ideas and revelations to the big screen and a wider audience.
Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) was a prominent voice among journalists and academics, having become the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1994. After Martin is stalked and killed in his own suburban neighbourhood, she is approached by a former colleague to write an article about the role racism played in the young man’s murder. However, life gets in the way, as well as her own feelings that what is happening in America runs deeper and calling it “racism” is too simple. So Isabel embarks on a multi-year journey in which she explores and defines the presence and impact of a caste system in the United States.
While this is a very complex issue, Wilkerson undertook the task of explaining it in a way that was clear and uncomplicated enough that anyone could understand it. Hence, DuVernay applies her approach in the film to describe the same concepts. It uses the Holocaust and still-present Indian caste system as examples and points of comparison to American slavery, Jim Crow laws and social hierarchies. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t get a little convoluted at times, but it is constructed with widespread comprehension in mind. One of the issues that may have muffled the message is the filmmaker’s commitment to following the book’s eight “pillars of caste” in the movie, which somewhat fractures the narrative and causes some abruptness as it forces the shift from one pillar to the next.
Nonetheless, Isabel’s thesis is a thought-provoking lens by which to view America’s past and present, and it required a strong performance to visually convey the provocative theory. Ellis-Taylor is able to present Wilkerson’s work in a manner that is stimulating and convincing, while also portraying the emotional hardships that surrounded the book and its research. Just as Isabel has a loving support system, Ellis-Taylor is buoyed by touching performances by the rest of the cast who portray her family and the research partners that help make the ideas presented in the film tangible. The book and film draw clear lines between caste and U.S. history, hopefully inspiring broader conversations about the role of race in contemporary society that can help create a potential blueprint for the future.
Director: Ava DuVernay
Starring: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal and Niecy Nash
By Sarah Gopaul
January 19, 2024
A scene from 'Origin' courtesy of Elevation Pictures
‘Origin’ is an adaptation of an American nonfiction book that suggests racial stratification in the United States is best understood as a caste system.
In 2020, spurred by the murder of Trayvon Martin, journalist and award-winning author Isabel Wilkerson released a book titled, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system — a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity — and uses India and Nazi Germany as more overt, non-U.S. examples of its impact. In Origin, Ava DuVernay attempts to bring Wilkerson’s ideas and revelations to the big screen and a wider audience.
Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) was a prominent voice among journalists and academics, having become the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1994. After Martin is stalked and killed in his own suburban neighbourhood, she is approached by a former colleague to write an article about the role racism played in the young man’s murder. However, life gets in the way, as well as her own feelings that what is happening in America runs deeper and calling it “racism” is too simple. So Isabel embarks on a multi-year journey in which she explores and defines the presence and impact of a caste system in the United States.
While this is a very complex issue, Wilkerson undertook the task of explaining it in a way that was clear and uncomplicated enough that anyone could understand it. Hence, DuVernay applies her approach in the film to describe the same concepts. It uses the Holocaust and still-present Indian caste system as examples and points of comparison to American slavery, Jim Crow laws and social hierarchies. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t get a little convoluted at times, but it is constructed with widespread comprehension in mind. One of the issues that may have muffled the message is the filmmaker’s commitment to following the book’s eight “pillars of caste” in the movie, which somewhat fractures the narrative and causes some abruptness as it forces the shift from one pillar to the next.
Nonetheless, Isabel’s thesis is a thought-provoking lens by which to view America’s past and present, and it required a strong performance to visually convey the provocative theory. Ellis-Taylor is able to present Wilkerson’s work in a manner that is stimulating and convincing, while also portraying the emotional hardships that surrounded the book and its research. Just as Isabel has a loving support system, Ellis-Taylor is buoyed by touching performances by the rest of the cast who portray her family and the research partners that help make the ideas presented in the film tangible. The book and film draw clear lines between caste and U.S. history, hopefully inspiring broader conversations about the role of race in contemporary society that can help create a potential blueprint for the future.
Director: Ava DuVernay
Starring: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal and Niecy Nash
No comments:
Post a Comment