Feature film puts slaying in new light
PARK CITY, Utah — The death of Oscar Grant more than four years ago has always been defined by the grainy cell phone and camera footage captured by those who saw a BART police officer shoot the unarmed young man in the back on an Oakland BART platform.
Soon, the public’s understanding of the case may be influenced by a different kind of video — a movie, “Fruitvale,” that earned raves at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which ends Sunday. It’s a contender for the Grand Jury Award, to be announced Saturday.
The film quickly sold to the Weinstein Co., reportedly for up to $2.5 mil-
lion, and could open in Bay Area theaters this year.
If it does, it has the potential to focus even wider attention on the tragic shooting that prompted protests, rioting in Oakland and a deep reform effort at BART.
It could change — or perhaps cement — the way people view Grant and his death at age 22, which raised important questions about the way police use lethal force.
Day in the life
The film is not a documentary and does not probe deeply into the shooting or its aftermath: Former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle was fired and then convicted of involuntary manslaughter after he testified he had mistakenly shot Grant while trying to draw his Taser during an arrest.
Mehserle, whose name is changed in the film, served a two-year sentence.
Rather, 26-year-old Bay Area filmmaker Ryan Coogler — in his debut — takes a day-inthe-life approach to Grant’s story.
As the young man from Hayward goes about his business on Dec. 31, 2008, he talks through relationship issues with his girlfriend, Sophina, tends to his daughter, Tatiana, and picks up crab for his mother’s birthday party that evening. In flashbacks, he also reassesses incidents from his past.
The Grant that emerges in Coogler’s screenplay — and in an evocative performance by Michael B. Jordan, known for his television roles in “Friday Night Lights” and “The Wire” — is of a kind man beloved by his family and friends. The on-screen Grant is trying hard to turn his life around, but he also has a quick temper and an irresponsible streak.
The movie does not dismiss Grant’s troubles, which included five arrests between age 18 and his death.
Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, who attended the film’s premiere at Sundance, said it was “really painful and hard to watch, but we got through it.” Some of the things that happen to Grant in the movie are fictionalized or compressed into one day. But in the end, he said, the portrayal rings true.
Johnson said Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, “didn’t want any of the bad in there. She didn’t like the idea of (Oscar) even cussing in the movie. … I’m glad to know they didn’t portray him like my sister would have preferred, like an angel. Because he wasn’t an angel. He’d been to prison and he’d made some mistakes. But overall, Oscar was a good person.”
Forgotten tragedy
Mehserle’s attorney, Michael Rains, said he had not seen the film and was never contacted by Coogler. He said he had concerns about the portrayal of such a controversial event in fictional terms.
Rains said he didn’t think Mehserle would see the movie, noting that the shooting will “scar his existence forever. There’s a tragedy there that everyone seems to forget about.”
The film was shot on location, including on the BART platform where Grant died. The transit agency granted a filmmaking permit after reviewing the script.
Luna Salaver, a BART spokeswoman, said the agency had no authority over the script but could have denied the permit if it had been deemed detrimental to BART’s image. She said Coogler and Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, one of the producers, met with BART officials.
Tom Radulovich, a BART board member, said he was looking forward to seeing the movie, joking, “I was wondering who would play me.”
“It’s a compelling story, and I think like everyone else, I’m curious to see how they tell it,” Radulovich said. He said he wasn’t concerned about new attention on the case, explaining, “The story we have to tell at BART about what’s changed since the shooting is a good story. We’ve greatly improved policing.”
Having an impact
Coogler, who works as a counselor at San Francisco’s juvenile hall, said he became a filmmaker to make a social impact on the world. He avidly followed the reporting on Grant’s slaying, Mehserle’s trial and the protests that marked its aftermath, before securing financing through grants from the San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
“After watching the trial, I really knew how I wanted to do the film,” Coogler said. “Immediately following, I was thinking about how I could have an effect, how I could do something to make sure there was less chance of something like this happening again.”
Coogler said insights from Grant’s family and friends were pivotal in defining Grant onscreen. He said he felt a responsibility not just to those who knew Grant but also to many who never met him.
“Oscar’s become a symbol for a lot of things,” Coogler said. “He’s very precious, not only to his family but to the Bay Area, so there was a lot of pressure there.”
Though four years have passed since Grant’s death, the aftermath is not completely over. Five of his friends, who were with him on the train platform, have a pending lawsuit against BART over their treatment that night. Meanwhile, the BART officer who first detained Grant and ordered his arrest, Anthony Pirone, is trying to overturn his firing through arbitration.