Watch Will Smith & Antoine Fuqua Discuss ‘Emancipation’; Can Academy Judge A Worthy Film On The Merits? – Contenders LA3C
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UPDATED with panel video: If not for The Slap that marred Will Smith’s Best Actor Oscar victory for King Richard last March, Emancipation would surely be at the forefront of the awards conversation.
Bought for a record sum by Apple in heavy competition, Emancipation tells the story of Peter, an enslaved man who escapes from a brutal camp and tries to find Lincoln’s advancing army so he can join up and save his family. Separating him from freedom are miles of imposing Louisiana swamps, and a hateful slave hunter and his attack dogs. It comes from a photo taken of Peter when he joined Lincoln’s army, which showed the scars on his back from a near-fatal beating. The photo circulated around the world, and made it irrefutable that slavery was a barbaric practice that needed to end. One could say there is a direct link to other images, from the video of George Floyd dying, to Emmett Till in his coffin, the news coverage of the Selma march. Smith once vowed he would not play a slave in a movie, but changed his mind because of the gravity of the situation.
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“For me, it was the recognition of those events, but it has also been the last couple of years where ideas and concepts I believed were behind us as a country,” Smith said on a panel for the Apple Original Films movie at the Contenders Film: LA3C event. “I started seeing a lot of these same ideas and belief systems that precipitated and sustained slavery in America, some of those concepts were coming back, with an energy I didn’t think was possible in modern day America.
“It became critical for me to illustrate the farthest extent of those ideas, when we let them take root and fester, what that can turn into. A big part of this was to create a reminder, to avert some of the same problems that we have made as a country in the past.”
Said Fuqua: “It was a very strange feeling to watch George Floyd die that way and watch the world react. And there were other victims around that time that didn’t get the same attention. I felt like we were at a crossroads. Some young people were born when Barack Obama was president and anything before was to be forgotten, with the discussion of what they were going to teach in the schools. Voter suppression in Georgia, all these things were bubbling at the same time and I felt this urgency to remind this country of our past. Not with anger, not with vengeance, just, this is the ugliness in the way we treat each other. Bob Richardson shot it in a way where the look is like you landed on an alien planet, where you cannot believe human beings treat each other this way. I felt an urgency.”
Added Smith: “It’s an American issue, but it’s a global issue, a human issue, a problem in the hearts of men. The illustration and depiction of this kind of brutality, and also beauty alongside the brutality, it illustrates the wrong way and the highest possibilities in the same frame, sometimes. It’s meant to be inspiration, uplift and cultivate compassion.”
During the discussion, Smith also acknowledged the challenge of the awards voting community that felt betrayed by his outburst at the Oscars.
“I’ve certainly spent the last nine month looking at that from so many different directions, so many angles,” he said. “The thing for me right now, and the thing that hurts my heart, is I think Antoine did probably the best work of his entire career. I think Charmaine [Bingwa], Ben [Foster], Bob Richardson and Naomi [Shohan], I think that so many artists have done possibly the greatest work of their careers. The idea they might be denied because of my actions really breaks my heart. It is critical and important to me to get this story out and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure this beautiful team of world-class artists isn’t penalized for my behavior.”
Said Fuqua about how he has processed all this: “For me, the good thing is I was in the middle of postproduction when it happened. I watched it happen and I’ve been with Will on this film for a couple years now and straight up he is one of the most incredible men I’ve ever met, one of the nicest I’ve met in my life. After awhile, I thought, this can’t be, this is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life, a very spiritual person. I focused on the film and wanted to make everyone proud of the movie. I was able to remove myself from all that, for a while. After, it kind of hit me.
“After Will called me to talk about the other people who worked on this film and what might happen. Will and Chris are good people, they are. People make mistakes and we are quick to judge now. My feeling is that, we have to move on at some point. He’s a great artist. Hollywood has seen some really nasty things in our business over the years. We have to find some compassion, some forgiveness in our hearts, for each other. I hope Will’s great work in this movie is not punished. We’re supposed to have these awards shows and all these other things, judged on the work. My hope is we keep the focus on the work, and let Chris and Will work out that personal situation themselves. He’s apologized and been punished, and I love ’em both. At some point, we have to put the attention back on the art, which is what it’s supposed to be about. And not the personal life.”
Check out the video above.
This report originally published during the Contenders LA3C: Conversations With Contenders on December 10. The streaming site featuring the full videos of all 11 panels from the event launches Thursday.
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