'Winnie' and 'Selma' to highlight black history

By Sarah Sluis

With Precious and Invictus, come Selma and Winnie.

Now that Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is steaming ahead and showing all signs of being a breakout hit, the director has lined up his next project. He is in final negotiations to direct Selma, which is based on three civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965. After three attempts (the first dubbed "Bloody Sunday" for its violent police action), demonstrators finally marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The five-day march, in support of black voting rights, is considered the apex of the civil rights movement.

The project has a lot going for it. Paul Webb, who wrote the script for Steven Spielberg's long-gestating Lincoln, penned Selma. While it has no cast, the movie already has a production start date set for this spring. Finally, Christian Colson, who produced big winner Slumdog Millionaire, will be heading up production. With a producer, director, and solid screenplay, this movie only needs a cast (which certainly will flock to the promising project) to get off the ground.

American audiences will see Invictus this December, which stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Now, Mandela's wife will get a turn. Jennifer Hudson announced she will star in Winnie, a biopic about Nelson Mandela's wife. While Mandela is almost universally beloved, Winnie doesn't have the same reputation. The couple separated after she was unfaithful, and her methods to abolish apartheid were considerably more violent. She almost served six years in jail after her bodyguard said she ordered him to kill a 14-year-old informer, but the sentence was later reduced to a fine. The contrast between Winnie and her husband is striking, and the filmmakers plan on showing her good and bad side. The project has a production start date of May 30th. Director Darrell J. Roodt has a South African pedigree, having helmed films such as Cry, the Beloved Country and Sarafina!

While Hollywood has been criticitzed for its portrayal (or lack of portrayal) of black characters over the years, these two projects, which come on the heels of two more high-profile films starring black actors, belie this notion. Three of the four are historical adaptations: Selma, Winnie and Invictus. Could this be the new trend? Because they're based in fact, they can be safer projects. By comparison, literary-based Precious is universal but controversial, difficult to watch, and has led many to cries of racism, stereotyping, and negative portrayals of black people, even as they commend the movie in other ways. But if Precious were a real person, I doubt these complaints of racism would be levied. Spike Lee's WWII box-office flop Miracle of St. Anna notwithstanding, historically based films may be the safest way to create a universal movie featuring black characters without having to deal with controversy that can swing the wrong way.