The movie Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, is an inspirational movie about the March to Montgomery led by Martin Luther King Jr, played by David Oyelowo. The movie follows King’s thoughts and actions as he fights with President Lyndon Johnson over what they had to do to get the act, all about the equal voting rights of blacks in the south, to pass. Most things that happened during this movie were correct to the way it actually happened in real life. The movie is quite close to the actual real life story; taking place in 1964.



Acting:

The acting in Selma was pretty great. I had never heard of many of the actors, other the Opera Winfrey, but they all did an amazing job. Even Common had a great performance with this being his acting debut. David Oyelowo captured the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. just about perfectly. He had the way of speaking, and the kinds of emotions that you’d probably expect King to have. With many other actors, such as Carmen Ejogo, who played the part of Coretta Scott King, exhibited the features that you’d expect someone who is in close relations to Martin would show. She was able to pull off a wide variety of emotions such as scared, and stern. The way the David Oyelowo gives the representations of King’s speeches just about perfectly. I feel as though Ava DuVernay picked amazing actors to play the characters in her movie.



Sound Effects and Music:

In the movie, you are going to get a ton of sound effects with it being a true story and a story that had a lot of drastic changes as it went on. The music in the movie was planned well and timed perfectly. In the dark days when Martin was fighting to try and get President Johnson to agree on their whole idea on equal voting for blacks in the south, the music was slow and dreary. When it was more upbeat, mainly during the march and at the very end, fast paced and quite cheery music was played. The music went along with how the movie went on, in a way that was just about the best I had ever heard out of a movie. With the sound effects, just about the same thing applies. The sound in the movie was phenomenal. You get sounds in the movie, such as doors slamming, that give away hints about what is about to happen. Also, at times, you have no idea what is about to happen as the sounds make sure that they point away from anything that could possibly happen that you would be able to predict. Once of these instances would be at the beginning when bomb went off and the three girls were killed. The time before this was cheery, and the blowing up of the building came as a complete surprise. The only hint is when the boy runs off, which, being a boy, doesn’t really tend to show anything that you would possibly know about.



Historical Accuracy:

Overall, the movie was pretty historically accurate. The marches that the people took were in the right order, and captured the mood that of which happened. They put in all the places (such as Selma) and made the sets look actually like how Selma looked back in the time when Martin Luther King Jr. led these marches. The only thing that I was able to find in the movie was the whole President Johnson part. This, even though it is pretty close to the real story, is a little bit off. Johnson actually greatly supported King in all of his efforts, and didn’t try and get him to stop. However, all of the talks and such between Johnson and King would have made the movie quite a bit too long; the Johnson King ordeal would have added about an hour to the film says the story writers. The way that everything was portrayed compared to how it happened in the historical context is just about as spot on as any other historical film I have seen.



Overall, with all that is good about this movie being considered, such as the acting, sound compliments, and Historical accuracy compared to context, and everything bad about the movie, a little bit of history set a little off confusing the audience, the movie is one of the best I have ever seen, and I would rate it a 9.7 out of 10.