Harriet January 28, 2020
If you do not know who Harriet Tubman is, see this movie.
She is a giant among feminists before there were feminists and she had a gun. Information
about Tubman is limited to 19th technology: photos, diaries,
newspapers and oral history. Cynthia Erivo’s and the director flesh out Tubman
as brave, passionate and fiercely committed to liberating slaves. Tubman’s
passion and bravery are rooted in her grief from being separated from family and
denied freedom. Erivo’s Tubman is complex with fierce resolve and commitment to her mission…freedom.
When told by other abolitionists to stop and not go back south she ignored them
and made numerous journeys. In her first escape she walked 100 miles from
Maryland to Philadelphia on foot.
Erivo’s plays Tubman as a messianic figure. Tubman believed God spoke to her and pointed her and her
charges in the direction to freedom. The runaway slaves believed in ability to
talk to God and escaped with her. These visions may have been due from a blow
to her head from an overseer; she was plagued by terrible headaches the rest of
her life.
The physical brutality of slavery was not a main focus of the
film. With the exception of brief shots of whip scared backs there was nothing
like what was shown in “12 years a slave”. The emphasis here was escape
not capture.
The film does not have a big named supporting cast, so Erivo
basically carries the movie. This is one reason the movie only cost $17m. In
the biz this is called “a specialty box
office”. All that said Erivo is nominated for an Oscar for best actress and nominated for original
song for Stand Up. In this movie she only sings a bit, but if you want
to hear her voice catch “Bad Times at the El Royale.”
She has just a
good a chance of winning best actress as the rest.
Some facts about Tubman:
She was a conductor on the Underground Railroad
(Flushing Queens was a stop). She freed 70 slaves.
She is the only women to have commanded a regiment
of black soldiers during the civil war and freed 700 slaves.
She had brain surgery without anesthesia; she
bit a bullet.
She died at 91
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