Belle 0

Yesterday, we went to see the movie, Belle, at the Naro (the Naro is a gem and a treasure).

You should see it too. It is much better than most critics seem to think; the critics seem lukewarm because the characterization is not complex enough for their refined tastes, the issues are too black-and-white (you will pardon the expression) for their complex minds, but, frankly, they miss the point. They are dissecting the movie as a movie, as some stand-alone thing, without context. The movie, for all that it is a movie, lives in today’s world; it brings alive issues of race and racism, subjugation and injustice, bigotry and exploitation, that live still, issues that are, indeed, black and white. Nothing illustrates this better than that one American political party still today exploits race and racism, subjugation and injustice, bigotry and exploitation to maintain its existence and fill the coffers of its candidates.

Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray

Know, though, that it is not a documentary. It is “based on a true story,” but it is not a true story. After all, it’s a movie, and one that is not all comic book heroes and CGI and remakes and silly sex jokes (those qualities suffice to make it an exception in these days, as the movie industry seems rarely capable of coughing up anything other than comic book heroes, CGI, remakes, and silly sex jokes). A “fictionalized” narrative of the real Belle is shoe-horned into a narrative about an insurance court case over the slave ship Zong, in which the crew of the ship tossed their “cargo” over the side of the ship so they could collect the insurance on the lives of the chattels–that is, items of property, such as chairs and tables–tossed them over the gunwales as if they had been chairs and tables.

Little is actually known about the real Belle. If you are interested in her, perhaps the best starting point is this post by Henry Louis Gates.*

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*Remember Henry Louis Gates? He was the Harvard professor who was rousted by the cops for coming home while black.