Detroit, 1967: a veritable race riot is boiling over the streets of the inner city. Buildings are on fire, stores are looted. Cops are on edge and are arresting any black person they see. The force is 93% white; 45% of those working in black neighbourhoods were considered to be “extremely anti-Negro” and an additional 34% were “prejudiced.” Charges of police brutality are abundant. Precincts overflow with black bodies.
On the night of July 25, police converge on the Algiers motel, allegedly because a sniper might be in or around the building. The motel’s 12 occupants are rounded up, interrogated, badly beaten, and humiliated by Detroit PD, Michigan State police, and the National Guard. At the end of the night, three black teenagers are left dead, killed by police.
Why? How?
Director Kathryn Bigelow presents a harrowing, claustrophobic rendition of these events, so tense and brutal that people walked out of the screening we attended. Other than Detroit being extremely difficult to watch, there are some problems with the film: Bigelow’s treatment of the subject is at a pretty cold remove, for example. And I for one felt it was just too long. The film could have ended when the last person leaves the motel, but instead it follows the white police officers who were charged with felonious assault, conspiracy, murder, and conspiracy to commit civil rights abuse. The courtroom scenes are a long, drawn-out denouement that don’t quite jibe with the first two thirds of the film. That said, I still feel like Detroit is an extremely effective film.
First, because it’s so timely. Watching those cops get off scot-free despite confessions, and then be congratulated for beating murder charges that were well-deserved, is infuriating, and familiar. This is not “history,” not when there are unarmed black children being gunned down by the people paid to protect them to this very day. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that in the past 50 years, we’ve done nothing to address the problem. Second, and maybe more importantly, is the way the movie made me feel. I’ve already said it was maybe a little void of emotion and that’s true; what I mean is how it made me evaluate my own filters. As sympathetic to the cause as I am, I’m still a white lady, and I experienced the film and the events depicted within it as a white person with all the privilege inherent in those words. The motel scenes are grueling and I had visceral reactions to them. Occasionally I caught myself frustrated with how the characters were responding to the cops, and I’d have to check myself. This is the fundamental takeaway of the film: my experience with police officers is essentially just very, very different. I wasn’t born with a historical fear of cops. My parents and grandparents didn’t raise me to be afraid of them. The colour of my skin protects me from the worst. My entitlement trusts in my human rights. My privilege demands that people in positions of authority will respect my unalienable civil liberties. The last interaction with a police officer I had was the guy directing pedestrians leaving a Cirque du Soleil show. The last time we were pulled over for speeding, there wasn’t so much as an apology uttered for being caught red-handed. These things don’t feel like privilege because they’re things we believe we’re owed, but it is privilege because not everyone gets to feel the same way.
Maybe it’s not perfect, but Detroit asks some difficult questions, which makes it an important film. It’s excruciating because it needs to be, and you need to watch it.
It is absolutely horrifying that the events of this movie could happen today (and basically do). Why do otherwise good cops cover for or ignore what the bad ones are doing?
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And why do white juries let them off?
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Related: why was this case heard by an all-white jury? The differing experiences with police that you mentioned would be very important in delivering a verdict but there was no one in the jury room with first hand insight into how minorities are treated by cops.
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Seems we are still fighting the Civil War. That is how it feels. Thanks Jay for your honesty and this review.
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I am planning to watch the movie. It feels like nothing has changed much 😦
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Great review! This is definitely an important film and sadly still so relevant.
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This one is on my watchlist!
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I am so glad you went to see this one. While we both understand it has flaws..namely the length of the film..we both realize that it is so relevant, both then and now, that it must be told, problems and all. Same as you, I’m a ‘white lady’ though being an immigrant here with parents who didn’t speak the language so well when we first got here, we were sometimes harassed for that..but nothing remotely like this. I just had tears of emotion thru that entire middle 55 minutes of excruciating pain that this film took us thru. I’m so glad you gave it a go-see and love your poignant review. 🙂
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I do want to see this as it feels more relevant considering what is going on and the fact that the police isn’t really doing anything about it. For the past few days, I’ve been listening to songs like Dead Kennedy’s “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” and Body Count’s “Cop Killer”.
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Nazi Punks Fuck Off is insanely timely right now.
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You goddamn right. I also suggest the Ramones’ “The KKK Took My Baby Away”.
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I’ve noticed that Bigelow’s films tend to have that distance to them. I guess that’s her style?
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Man I feel like this movie is just going to make me punch someone or something. This past week has been awful enough. But if I don’t see it, I feel like the Not Knowing part is going to eat away at me more. Still, I’m really really not looking forward to sitting through 2 hours of police brutality bullshit.
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The hardest movies to watch are often the ones that change us…
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