AVA DUVERNAY’S 13th
Watch For Free: From Slave to Criminal w/ One Amendment
13th, the documentary film helmed by Ava DuVernay (the director of Selma, as well as A Wrinkle In Time, and Netflix’s When They See Us), gets to the heart of the contradiction in the 13th amendment. The text of the Reconstruction Era amendment (that was ratified in 1865) eschews legalese, but to put it plainly, the amendment outlawed slavery except as a a punishment for a crime.
It doesn’t take being a legal or constitutional scholar to understand the implications of such a rule, especially as it relates to the inequitable and abusive experiences of BIPOC within the U.S. Justice System. DuVerney crafts the film’s thesis as an indictment of the prison-industrial complex and the war on drugs.
The editing (by consistent DuVernay collaborator Spencer Averick) brings in archival footage of President Barack Obama, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X and more to explain the history and impact of the amendment. The film opens with a speech by Obama decrying how the United States has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prison population. DuVernay also got permission from the families of Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, and Eric Garner to include audio/video footage of their death.
13th features interviews with activist/professor emeritus Angela Davis, lawyer Bryan Stevenson (recently depicted by actor Michael B. Jordan in the legal drama Just Mercy), Senator Cory Booker, public intellectual Henry Louis Gates Jr., and others.
Through the cinematography by Hans Charles (also behind the camera for the doc Mr. Soul!, and the feature 1 Angry Black Man), and Kira Kelly (known for TV work on Issa Rae’s Insecure, and the mini-series Self Made about Madam C.J. Walker with Octavia Spencer),
the interviewees are framed against industrial backdrops of steel and brick. DuVernay says This aesthetic is meant to signify “the labor that’s been stolen from (people of color) for centuries,” according to DuVernay in USA Today.
The film was made in secrecy and was only revealed when it became the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival.
It was nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars and later picked up a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary (along with 3 other Emmys).
It has been quite a while since the United States of America has amended the Constitution. The 27th —and most recent— amendment was ratified in 1992. That amendment is a dry bit of text concerning congressional salaries. So clearly there is no reason to add or amend anything else to a document written by white guys who lived in a time before electricity and modern medicine. It’s not like anything has happened in the last few decades that would warrant the ratification of the proposed Equal Rights (ERA), or District of Columbia Voting Rights amendments.
13th was released by Netflix, but they also made this documentary free to stream on their YouTube channel as well.
