DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Denzel Washington’s “Flight” Takes Off
© NaimaLett.com/blog
© Paramount, Flight with Academy Award winner Denzel Washington
Two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington…
is all the buzz again in Hollywood these days.
By the PR campaigns currently flooding our industry, it looks like a pretty serious Oscar race is gearing up between Denzel for his new film Flight and another two-time Academy Award winner, Daniel Day Lewis, for Lincoln. May the best Academy Award winner win!
As Promised…
As I promised yesterday in my blog, Rise of the Guardians: Two Thumbs Up, in response to your inquiries about my opinion on different films, I will share my thoughts periodically on the latest movies, especially building up to Academy Awards season.
FLIGHT
Paramount’s Flight takes off with a bang and brings us along for its bumpy ride.
The official film synopsis reads as follows:
In this action-packed mystery thriller, Academy Award® winner, Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot, who miraculously crash lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly every soul on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault and what really happened on that plane?
Moral Ambiguity
Flight’s Academy Award winning director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, The Polar Express) describes the film as a “complex drama with moral ambiguity”.
I agree.
Sure, there’s the “big budget” 20-minute crash sequence that we’ve all heard about which allows the producers to tout this as an action thriller made for a mere $31 million. But at its heart, this film is a “complex drama with moral ambiguity”. And it’s that moral ambiguity that Paramount is counting on to win audiences.
But for those of us with moral compasses pointing north, ambiguity can be frustrating. We want to pull for Denzel’s Whip Whitaker, but he’s making harmful choices. He’s not Training Day Denzel, but he’s definitely not Glory Denzel either. He’s in the middle and Hollywood tends to like that.
I found myself talking out loud to the screen like “C’mon!” Without giving the plot away, let’s just say that Denzel is so believable in the role, that if I had seen him when the movie was over, I would’ve been tempted to tap him on the back of the head like, “What were you thinking?”
The last time I had that kind of reaction was for 2008’s The Hurt Locker‘s explosive expert played by Jeremy Renner. Jeremy has since moved on to several other movies including The Avengers, but every time I see him, I have a visceral reaction because of Hurt Locker.
That’s why Denzel will be nominated.
Because we have a visceral reaction which lingers long after the last frame.
One Caution, Maybe Two
Flight is Rated R for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity and an intense action sequence. This is definitely not the Friday night Family Fun joint for the kids.
The film opens with full frontal female nudity for a good chunk of the first scene, for no reason whatsoever, but to bring that “shock value” that screenwriters believe they have to use to hook their audience. And why is it always female nudity? Could it be because of male writers, male directors, male producers, male studio heads are making movies for themselves? Denzel wasn’t naked for the first 4 minutes of the film. Just saying.
Lots of Christians ask me how Denzel, who is very vocal about his Christian faith, can do films with characters with such moral ambiguity. I mean, Denzel just told The Hollywood Reporter that “he studies the Bible daily and says he has just been pondering Psalm 56, with its plea: “Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; the fighting daily oppresseth me.”
When he got the script for Training Day, Denzel reportedly wrote across the top, “The wages of sin is death”. If you don’t recognize that, it’s from Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Does that allow him to play such rogue characters with no morality? Does this reflect a moral ambiguity in his own life?
Here’s what I believe. Denzel is an actor. He chooses films, many times, with redemptive story lines, but he also plays incredibly flawed individuals… because we are all incredibly flawed individuals. He is reflecting back to society what we are: fallen.
Now, as a pastor who has had a career as an actor, I cannot do the same. You would not take God’s Word coming out of my mouth seriously if I stripped naked onscreen and cursed everybody out. Be honest. You would crucify me. Which is why I’ve had the body of work I’ve had, and why Denzel has the body of work he has. At one point, he says he thought he’d be a preacher. Then he received a prophecy and he went into acting. The rest is history.
Go Fly
If you go experience Flight, and it is an experience, you will definitely take a ride. Other standout performances include John Goodman, Don Cheadle and Melissa Leo. And hey, let me know what you think!
Onward & upward,
Naima
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© 2012 Naima Lett. All Rights Reserved
You keep things fresh and exciting. Great perspective on faith, pursuit of dreams, and how we separate but try and keep God in what we do. I pray that your blog continues to serve the purpose you intended it for and that it continues to grow.
Thanks a million, TJ.
Always wonderful to hear from you, my brother. Thanks for tuning in and sharing your thoughts. Means a lot.
Mad appreciation! :=)
Naima
Interesting view. Thank you. I saw the movie and I share many of the same sentiments. I’m ready to see Mr. Washington play a few other roles. The first few min. of the movie could have been directed differently with just as much of a power punch and clarity. The easy way was the in your face nudity.
So true, Sis. Kathy! So true. I think the screenwriter was so determined to arrest us with the shocking moment that he didn’t think of other ways to get the same point across. I’m hoping that we’ll get waves and waves of more creativity out here! LOL!
Hope you’re having a wonderful time leading up to Christmas.
Lots of love your way.
Hey Naima,
I’m seeing your blog on movies for the first time. Flight grabbed me first since it was one of the last 5 or 6 that I saw in the theater. You have viable points of view that should spark quite a bit of debate. There are various ways that I look at the perspective of being an actor while being a Christian.
1st, I do believe that preachers/pastors/ministers are held at a different standard. They aren’t better than everyone else but they certainly aren’t allowed to flow through life the same as others. I believe that the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do” probably has a tie to this thinking also. The saying doesn’t hold alot of weight most of the time. The following is probably why kids don’t always listen to it. (James 3:1 My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.)
Second, the bible is filled with many stories that play before us on the screen. The difference is that the “Christian” labeled films won’t go as far to prove the same points. Hence, they rarely reach the people that need to be reached if we speak in numbers. That 10% of people that appear in church regularly will continue to be in the church. What about that 90% that remains outside? It takes more drastic measures, oftentimes, to bring them inside the doors. Something must change.
Third, it’s an interesting thought. Should man be allowed to mimic the fallen in order to scare others straight? Should man be allowed to act out sin in order to show others what they shouldn’t be a part of? If not, then every GOOD movie pitting good vs. evil and just about every performer should be asked to choose another profession. There should be no excessive drunkenness, no murder, no theft, and so forth and so on. Don’t show any of the 10 commandments in a performance.
Where does that leave film and television? It leaves it in a boring place with nil effect because it can’t show right versus wrong or good versus evil. One of the first things scriptwriters are taught is that your story will lie within a handful of themes. Another is that your character must be flawed in some way in order to show change throughout. By the end of the film, if characters haven’t changed there’s no real story there.
In Flight, I felt like the lead did show change. I also feel that Denzel is a Christian despite the flaws that his characters show.
And as someone mentioned earlier, he does need to have more roles written that are different in scope. How can he do that without someone in the movie taking a trip to the dark side? TLegacy
Hi Tieuel Legacy aka Shawnre,
Great to hear from you, Man! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts. Being a filmmaker yourself, we so appreciate your views.
Re: different standard for ministers, I’m used to it by now. Just wish folks would hold themselves to same standards they hold up for others i.e. take plank out of own eye before removing the speck of dust from our brother/sister. Matthew 7:1-5
Re: our stories. I agree with you that as filmmakers we must have the freedom to share reality and truth in our stories. Absolutely. We can tell stories about fallen individuals with themes of good versus evil, sin, redemption and whatever else we want to explore. That’s not an issue. I am not one who believes that our art should not be based in reality. I believe it has to be. I am committed to sharing truth.
Where I got lost in the first few minutes of FLIGHT was the gratuitous nudity. I think the human body is beautiful. God made us and we’re exquisite – nude and all. But I don’t have to observe nude actresses for long periods of time to celebrate our beauty.
While we can argue FLIGHT shows truth, I can also argue that I can get that Denzel’s character is flawed without 2-3 minutes of full frontal and back nudity of the actress sharing his scene. Denzel wasn’t nude for 3 minutes. We’ve never seen Denzel full frontal nudity in any of the 40+ films that he has done. I’m not saying that we need to. I’m just saying our women are often exploited by our male writers, directors, producers, etc. and I wish to goodness that we would find other ways to start our movies than naked women for shock value.
But I digress. :=)
Hope you have a wonderful holiday, my friend!
Go forth!
Yeah there’s been that dichotomy between showing men and women. I get that. But I do believe that it was one hell of a way to begin the story of him being flawed. Definitely shock value. I think it’s like violence. That part affected people in different ways because it was obviously a topic of discussion.
In a real way, it made it easier for me to identify with her character in the end (won’t spoil it). I don’t think she had more than 5 words but in the closing minutes I felt her presence within his decisions. He could’ve easily tossed her away because of the person that she was in the beginning. Hopefully, that makes sense because I don’t wanna give it away for anyone that hasn’t seen it.
Women had a fit when Denzel nearly had sex with a white woman in “He Got Game”. Imagine them showing him full frontal.
Happy holidays to ya’ll also. I’m on the grind here but even more than ever now.
TL
There are a lot of women, like myself, who will agree that we would have still felt the character’s presence by the end of the film if we had not stared at her naked for the first 3 minutes of the film. The lengthy nudity was gratuitous and unnecessary.
We got that Denzel’s character was flawed and we didn’t stare at his nude body. He was wrapped in a sheet. I dare say that we stared at the actress naked for that long because the men making the film thought it would be great to look at the actress naked. I don’t have a problem with nudity. I have a big problem with gratuitous and exploitative nudity. I’m wishing for our filmmakers to come up with more creative ways to open our films. That’s my challenge to all of us.
As creatives, we must bring reality and truth to the camera and to the stage. But we also have the wonderful opportunity of bringing that truth in a responsible way that doesn’t exploit our fellow artists.
To me, the question is not, “Do we tell stories that involve sin?” That’s a given. My question is, “How can we tell stories that involve sin in a creative, responsible way that impact and influence our world towards truth and hope without exploiting each other along the way?”
I have had my fill this season of gratuitous nudity and violence under the broad umbrella of filmmakers ‘telling it like it is’. Every author, playwright and screenwriter, every single storyteller, makes a conscious decision about how we tell our stories. I’m hoping that more and more artists choose to tell our stories in ways that explore our journeys into light, not just highlight our darkness. Or at least, when we expose the dark, still do it in a way that respects our daughters, mothers, sisters, wives and the women of our lives.
Alas, films are subjective and our reactions are subjective. We can see the same film and have 2 totally different reactions. I respect that. It’s great to dialogue. Thanks for your thoughts.