Boycott (2001)

Really Surprised!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I use movies as an adjunct to English class in a remote part of India. I like to show movies from different parts of the world or where students will also learn something about history or cultures, so I bought this movie sight unseen. I'm sure it's a great movie, but for my students it was much too slow moving and they started to lose interest. I was disappointed about that since I find this episode in history so exciting, but that's how it went in my class. If you use "Boycott" in an ESL class, be sure to give the background to the history beforehand. Don't worry about the accents -- they are clear, and the dialog is clear and slow enough, but a lot of background knowledge s required.

I just saw Boycott on Kings day of celebration 2004 and it has renegized me as a filmmaker and brother. All the elements are her from Jeffery Wright's beautiful portral of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and the power to move forward on faith and conviction, to the supporting cast and the brilliant cinematography telling the story in both a narritive and documentary style. Much love to Clark Johnson for his direction in a film that offered us more of king then we ever knew and handling the material with the respect it is due. Let's not forget david Hennings who I hope to hire someday and Stewart Burns for such poignant writing. My favorite part is when every one gets on the now desegregated bus but king and you see it pull away with king in the back window. He is ordinary yet extraordinary and has more battles yet to come. The ending is inspiring and makes this a new classic in the history of king's legacy. Props to HBO and all involved.

This film is astonishingly good. I admit I am a Black film student but lovers of great cinema everywhere will exhilarated by "Boycott".The story of the Montgomery bus Boycott and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. have been both reclaimed and expanded in a cinematic tour-de-force.You have never seen a King like Jeffrey Wright's. The first time you see him he is about to dance with his beautiful wife. From his sensuality to his preaching style, his walk to his style of dress I cannot remember a cinematic Martin Luther King that was so authentically African-American.The film uses different film textures like jazz musicians play their instrument. Moving from black and white documentary footage to black and white digital video, 35mm color to color super eight, each film stock has a different quality used to contextualize the films dramatic impact.For instance, early in the film an elderly Black man is shot waiting for the bus in glorious technicolor(common to the fifties). He directly addresses the camera discussing the fact that the boycott is on. The bus pulls up obscuring our view of him and when it pulls away it takes the color with it. The old man continues to stand at the bus stop-now in black and white.The film makes superb use of this technique throughout.It also pays attention to the oral tradition in the African-American community by depicting various preaching styles and the film is infused with great Black music utilized in ways that are as inventive as the use of film stock.Don't take my word for it though. I will watch almost any film for fifteen minutes. See if you can stop after watching the first fifteen minutes of "Boycott".

"Boycott" tells the story of a pivotal time in the history of a young republic still bleeding from civil war. The famous mid-50's bus boycott of Montgomery which launched the modern American civil rights movement is presented with restraint and an obvious commitment to truth over drama. The film is a well crafted integration of story, real and fabricated file footage, quick vignettes of blacks and whites expressing sentiments of the time, and an interesting wandering between color and black and white all serving to keep the sense of history alive and to prevent the viewer from becoming inured to the magnitude of the issues being presented. Kudos to Wright for an excellent portrayal of a great American leader. A good, entertaining history lesson for all.