My two cents (in
fact you can call me TwittyCent, rappin’ on Red Tails unseen):
I have a distinct
feeling that accuracy is a McGuffin
in the woodpile. Is the film any good? Does it
work either as an action film or a drama of affirmation? They are directors who
can handle both, find or “build” one.
While truth and
accuracy can well buttress one another, they are not the same thing. Accuracy
is a superb tool for making science and art, useful but inert. Art is fulfilled
by truth. Does Red Tails portray the Tuskegee Airmen truthFULLY or with mere accuracy?
Truth is less
expensive than accuracy. Accuracy can be used to shape truth but you cannot
pile accuracy or money high enough to make truth. You tell the tale within the
budget you have, and truth is free, if hard earned. Does Red Tails tell
the story of the Tuskegee Airmen well whatever its means?
Dealing with
exposition sounds like grad jargon, so
I’ll just take my usual obdurate position (which if you change my mind will be
my ex-position) of Wha’ da hell ar’ ya
ta’kin’ about?
“… where does the observer” [an
non-disinterested party] “stand to report back one’s evaluation of such a
movie? “ Is an interesting question; though personal disappointment and
valid critical evaluation are not necessarily nullifying. Wish I could get
into Diane’s second review: http://www.filmlinc.com/film-comment/article/red-tails-review.
I expected a failure on some level, because you can’t
serve whole whale at a sushi bar. The accurate story, well and truthfully told,
had to be and still ought to be a mini-series. (Do maxi-series exist?) There
are many truthful stories to be made into small or large films. But their
success will be hard earned works-at-art.
They might’ve simply made a good
war-action film based on the Airmen’s exploits, employing types; in the heat
of war, I believe types tend to be very
similar: country boy, city boy, angry guy, nice guy, loud, quiet, etc. Simply
having them played by young black men would be striking.
They might have focused the
psychological drama more narrowly and efficiently on General, then Col., Davis.
His father was the first black General in the US Army and Davis Jr. faced
“silencing” for all four years at West Point. In this way you would avoid the
problem of trying to choose between many and various heroes and telling their
deep stories. You have B.O. ‘s trials and tribulations and the high (flying)
adventures and antics of men like my father, Roscoe, Pruitt, etc. A whole film
could be made about almost any Airmen.
Expositioning myself to the ridicule
of the high muckity mucks of education,
lee
