Movie tells a different story about U.S. slavery
- When director Kasi Lemmons started work on the first major movie about Harriet Tubman, the 19th century slave turned hero of the Underground Railway, she decided to focus less on the brutality of slavery and more on human stories.
“I really felt that I wanted to speak about a different kind of violence, which was family separation, which I hadn’t seen as much of but is very much the Harriet Tubman story and what she was motivated by,” said Lemmons. Lemmons co-wrote the screenplay for Harriet, which opens in U.S. movie theaters yesterday.
“This image of her sisters being taken away, her brother having to leave his wife right after childbirth, her sister saying, ‘no, I can’t leave my children.’ The choices that people had to make and the fact that she was motivated to go back to rescue her family,” Lemmons added.
Tubman was born into slavery in the early 1800s in Maryland. As a young adult, she escaped slavery by running nearly 100 miles through forests and fields. She then risked her life several times to return to Maryland and lead dozens of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
The petite, 5 foot-tall (1.5 meter) Tubman is played by Cynthia Erivo, a London-born actress with Nigerian parents who won a Tony award in 2016 for her lead role in the Broadway revival of the musical The Color Purple.
The casting of a British actress to play a woman seen as an African-American icon has caused controversy in the United States, but Lemmons said she thought Tubman’s story “was big enough to share.”
Lemmons said she was struck by Erivo’s “physical stature and her athleticism and her singing voice and those cheekbones . ... I felt like, ‘Oh, I’m looking at somebody who really, really could make me believe it.’ And I really think that that’s what it’s about. I think the most service that I can do to this character is to bring, help bring this perfectly realistic performance.”
Erivo said she worked hard to capture Tubman’s physicality.
“It was really about finding the map of her face,” she said. “So we would look at pictures, discuss, you know, her downturned mouth, her eyes, how she would hold them, her body, where the tension was, try to find her voice. Because I knew I didn’t want her to sound like me.” (Reuters) - When Ringo Starr decided to record a cover of one of the last songs written by John Lennon, the Beatles drummer knew he wanted former bandmate Paul McCartney to play bass.
Then, his record producer found a way to bring in a bit of the late George Harrison. The producer, Jack Douglas, inserted strings from “Here Comes the Sun” - one of the few Beatles hits written by Harrison - into the Starr’s recording of the song “Grow Old with Me.”
“We’re all on it now,” Starr, in an interview with Reuters, said of the musical reunion. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Grow Old with Me” is a single on Starr’s new album called “What’s My Name.” Lennon had recorded a demo of “Grow Old with Me” for his 1980 release “Double Fantasy,” but the song never made it onto that album.
Starr, 79, said Lennon’s voice can be heard on the demo saying “this’ll be great for you, Ringo.”
“It was emotional listening to John’s version, cause he’d written other songs for me,” Starr said. “So I thought no, I’m going to do this one.”
“I love the song, and the emotion of him speaking to me,” Starr added. “He’s been gone quite awhile, but it’s emotional to me. He was one of my greatest friends.”
Starr, who also has just released a new photography book called “Another Day in the Life,” said he was thrilled that the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album returned to the top of music charts this month amid renewed interest because of its 50th anniversary.
“How far out is that?,” he said. “I think it impresses people that it was made 50 years ago, and we did our best and we mixed it the best way we could.”