With Monday being the day that America observes the Martin Luther King holiday I have been seeing a lot of his quotes and speeches in various places. This made me question something about his legacy. Where is the definitive MLK movie? I know there have been small pictures depicting his life. There is even a movie titled ‘Memphis’ by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum). No offense to Paul but the title already tells me that this will not be the deep piece I was hoping for. According to an article in the Huffington Post the film is “to focus on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- specifically in the time leading up to his death.”
Say what you want about Martin Luther King but he is our most famed civil rights icon. In the days where Abraham Lincoln has a fictional and a fact based movie come out, I think it shows there is some box office in history. King would be good because he is a more relatable and recent figure. I need a filmmaker to step up the way Spike Lee did to make Malcolm X. Unlike Lee the filmmaker whom presents this project may actually get some funding from a major studio.
Don’t get me wrong I do understand that there will be some challenges to making a movie on this scale. It maybe that some in Hollywood are fearful of taking on such a huge task. The length of the film would be the first issue because it’s hard to tell a life story in two hours. Then there is the content and do we talk about some of the negative parts of King’s past. Would a depiction of anything bad despite how factual it could be hurt the image of a hero. All those things being said I would like somebody to get it done.
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