Another element giving that impression is the seemingly slapdash manner in which the plethora of expert witnesses are introduced. The presence of Ken Thompson, the late and lamented Brooklyn DA, provides an unexpected wallop of emotion.Īt times the film can feel like a cocktail party where the thrill of being invited is tempered by the likelihood that you and Grover Norquist-on hand to defend Lee Atwater’s usage of Willie Horton in the 1988 presidential campaign- are the only ones without tenure. (Either Cornell West didn’t get the email, or DuVernay left out the outspoken critic of our sitting president in hopes of securing Obama’s biopic sometime down the road). She builds a breathtaking momentum, one that is kept on track through crisp editing and music, and propelled forward by the charisma and insights of talking heads you both expect to encounter in a film like this-there you are, Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates-and others you may not-nice to meet you, badass Grand View University history prof Kevin Gannon.
It is a compelling argument made even more so by the thrust of DuVernay’s narrative velocity. Here, inserted into the body of the law by means of two devilish commas, is more than a third of the 13th’s 32 words: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” In the film’s view, this is a “loophole,” one used historically to maintain in shadow the economic system of the institution the amendment sought to destroy, and currently to prop up a prison industrial complex that benefits corporate interests at the expense of communities of color. Like the poison in the cure, DuVernay traces the injustice of America’s institutional racism back to the amendment that abolished slavery and gave the film its name. The Selma director’s film manages to capture the depth and insidiousness of more than a century of cultural, societal and economic oppression along racial lines and then condenses it into a brisk 100-minute package that could literally slip right into your pocket.
It feels like the manifestation of that ghostly Encyclopedia of Woke many of us have been grasping for since the Black Lives Matter movement sprung up following the acquittal of the man who killed Trayvon Martin. Dropped Lemonade-like out of the blue to kick off the New York Film Festival before settling into its forever home on the streaming service, Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th provides all of the context needed for that conversation.