The Butler
First and foremost, the unusual choice of Portuguese composer Rodrigo Leao has paid off in a flavorsome, non-cookie cutter score that's abetted by a raft of pop tunes that helps identify the quickly passing time periods.
Nobody who has seen “Shadowboxer,” “Precious” or, heaven knows, “The Paperboy” would mistake Lee Daniels for a realist. Nonetheless, his new film — released, as a result of a ridiculous film industry food fight, with the ungainly official title “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” — is a brilliantly truthful movie on a subject that is usually shrouded in wishful thinking, mythmongering and outright denial.
Taking inspiration from an article by Wil Haygood in The Washington Post about the life of Eugene Allen, who worked as a butler in the White House during eight presidential administrations, Mr. Daniels has told the story of the civil rights movement in the bold colors of costume pageantry and the muted tones of domestic drama. He also throws in a few bright splashes of crazy, over-the-top theatricality, in the form of outrageous period-appropriate outfits and startling celebrity cameos, as well as dabs of raucous comedy. You may hear it said, in praise of “The Butler,” that it shows this director in a more restrained, responsible frame of mind than his earlier films did. This may be true — most movies not directed by John Waters can be described as more restrained than “The Paperboy” — but it misses both the subtlety of Mr. Daniels’s previous movies and the wild exuberance of this one.
The history of repression, protest and reform did not just happen on the abstract plane of activism and politics, but also in the lives of ordinary families, who were always doing more than just suffering and struggling. The genius of “The Butler” lies in the sly and self-assured way it connects public affairs to private experience. Early on, Cecil Gaines, the character loosely based on Mr. Allen, is taught that he, like every other African-American who wants to survive in a white-dominated world, must have two faces. This practical advice is an echo of W. E. B. Du Bois’s idea, articulated in “The Souls of Black Folk,” of the “double consciousness” at the heart of the black experience in America. “We wear the mask that grins and lies” is how the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar bitterly summarized the duplicity imposed by post-Civil War white supremacy on its emancipated but disenfranchised victims.
“The Butler” has the historical insight and the generosity of spirit to honor the father and the son equally, and to look with skepticism at each’s point of view. Louis can be courageous and principled, but when his radicalism turns foolish, the film does not hesitate to take his father’s side. Cecil, on the other hand, is blind to the intensity of his son’s convictions and the necessity of the work his son is doing, and his proud patriarchal stubbornness hurts everyone in the family.
But Cecil and Louis, in the end, are doing the same work: they are insisting that their country, at long last, recognize them as full citizens and human beings. Mr. Daniels measures how much of this work has been accomplished, at what cost and with what enemies and allies, and never lets us suppose that it is finished. He dedicates “The Butler” to “the heroes of the civil rights movement” and leaves no doubt that people like the title character — including the unsung maids, Pullman porters, janitors and kitchen workers who toiled far from the White House — belong in that category. We remember those who marched and who stood up for themselves in the face of injustice. It is good to remember that, to paraphrase Milton, they also stand who only wait and serve.
There's no denying the stumbles that mar this
alternately riveting and risible historical epic (big stars in bad makeup doing
cameos as American presidents – yikes!). Yet Lee Daniels' The Butler
holds you, provokes you and ultimately moves you. It's a huge task, trying to
detail the battle between Uncle Tom-ism and radicalism that divided
African-Americans during civil rights movements between 1957 and 1986. And to do
it through one man, Cecil Gaines (a stellar Forest Whitaker), a White House
butler who served seven presidents, defines risky.
Props for ballsiness to Oscar-nominated director Lee
Daniels (Precious) and Emmy-winning screenwriter
Danny Strong (Recount, Game Change). As for the legal ruling that
Daniels' name be added to the title to not infringe on a 1916 silent short
called The Butler, I'm saying bullshit.
The Butler (sue me, that's what I'm calling
it) begins with five words that always arouse suspicion: "Based on a true
story." For starters, Cecil Gaines never existed. There was, however, Eugene
Allen, a White House fixture for 34 years until he retired as head butler in
1986. Eugene, a widower, did live long enough to attend the historic swearing-in
of Barack Obama, as Cecil does in the fi m. For strict adherence to facts,
that's mostly it.
The backstory that The Butler gives Cecil
is fiercely melodramatic. On a segregated Georgia plantation in 1926, young
Cecil watches his mother (Mariah Carey) raped and his father murdered by a white
owner (Alex Pettyfer). Taken in as "house nigga" by the family matriarch
(Vanessa Redgrave), Cecil soon flees, picking up pantry jobs that lead to
employment at an elegant D.C. hotel and then 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. These
incidents are meant to indicate the fear that builds subservience into Cecil's
DNA.
At the White House, Cecil shows a humility that disarms fellow servants
(Lenny Kravitz and a very fine Cuba Gooding Jr.) and white leaders of the free
world. It's the quickie presidential drop-ins that nearly sink the film. As
Dwight Eisenhower, Robin Williams barely registers. James Marsden's JFK is all
sweet martyr. Liev Schreiber's LBJ spouts racial slurs but supports key civil
rights bills. John Cusack's Richard Nixon supports his own neuroses. Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter (seen in news clips) get no stars to play them. Alan Rickman's
Ronald Reagan (Jane Fonda plays Nancy) o ffers Cecil kindness while
hypocritically supporting apartheid. Silent Cecil stands and waits. What's
roiling inside him? Ask his family.
It's the family angle that gives The Butler
its heat. Whitaker works beautifully with Oprah Winfrey as Gloria, Cecil's
not-so-dutiful wife. Gloria sublimates her frustration over her husband's 24/7
devotion to the Oval Office by finding sham solace in booze and a sleazy a air
with a neighbor (Terrence Howard). Winfrey is a full-throttle wonder, filling
her role with heart soul and a healing resilience. It's Gloria who tries to give
Cecil common ground with their two sons, neatly divided in their politics.
Daddy's boy Charlie (Elijah Kelley) enlists for Vietnam. Rebellious Louis (a
deeply affecting David Oyelowo) veers from Martin Luther King to the militancy
of Malcolm X. Louis' takedown of Sidney Poitier as Hollywood's Uncle Tom is a
notveiled attack on Cecil. Dramatic sparks, a Daniels specialty, really fly in
this scene. What a shame the Daniels roar is often muffled by prestige-picture
respectability. At its best, The Butler lets us into Cecil's head and
his dawning consciousness. Dinah Washington is heard twice on the soundtrack
singing "I'll Close My Eyes." But it's watching Cecil open his eyes, in
Whitaker's reflective, powerfully understated performance, that fills this
flawed film with potency and purpose. Striving really does bring its own
glory.
"One quiet voice can ignite a revolution"
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