Emancipation star and producer Will Smith along with director and executive producer Antoine Fuqua and NAACP Hollywood Bureau SVP Kyle Bower joined Deadline on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a special panel presentation to talk about the riveting anti-slavery film. The Apple Original Films pic ells the harrowing tale of an escaped slave named Peter (Smith), who makes a treacherous five-day journey across the Louisiana swamplands in search of freedom for himself and his family at a nearby battleground occupied by President Abraham Lincoln’s troops.
Taking place in 1863, just months after enslaved people were declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation, the film is inspired by the true account and famous photograph of a Black man known both as Gordon and “Whipped Peter.” The gruesome photo, taken during a medical exam for Peter’s induction into the Union Army, depicts numerous lacerations and disfigured flesh resulting from the injustice and brutality of slavery. Shocked by the horrors of slavery, at the time often denounced or covered up, abolitionists widely printed and used the image to further stoke the flames of public opposition to slavery and inspire other Black men to join the Union Army against the Confederates.
Because Emancipation is an unflinching historical account of slavery, Fuqua and Smith had to take the audience and their perception of trauma done to Black bodies into account.
“It was really interesting with the decision of what to show and how to show it,” Smith said. “And there was a lot of energy that went into it. We were speaking to Mary Elliot, the director of the [Smithsonian’s National] African American Museum of History and Culture, and she was talking about how she had that same difficulty in putting together these slavery exhibits because you want to capture the reality, but you don’t want the reality to be so unbearable that people wouldn’t wanna come see the exhibit. So it’s like you’re trying to find that delicate balance where you reach people and you capture the essence of the depth of the atrocity without defeating your purpose by creating something that people don’t wanna to see.”
Fuqua added that he doesn’t see the film as a slavery movie but something beyond that narrative that has to do with the power of religion, resilience and the human spirit.
“The whole point of the movie was about love and family and resilience and faith and saving ourselves. That’s the most inspiring thing about Peter. He saved himself… We can never forget how important that is in filmmaking to make a film where we save ourselves, especially true stories.”
As part of the NAACP Hollywood Bureau, Bowser, who recently forged a recent partnership with the HFPA, agreed that despite the discourse around creating visceral films that highlight the harsh reality of plantation-era America, Black people should acknowledge them.
“We talk a lot at the NAACP Hollywood Bureau about the filmmaking process and how every frame of what you see is deliberate. None of this happens by happenstance. You have very talented and smart people who put these stories together, and they toil over just how to depict the story,” Bowser said. “And, when you have trusted filmmakers, trusted storytellers like Antoine and Will and the others involved, you can believe that their intentionality is worth your time and your attention. There’s nothing more traumatic than to separate people from their history. That’s the most traumatic thing you can do to a person or to a group of people. And so for us to now excavate those stories and to really take a hard look at the truth of what we have suffered. I think it really is necessary in order for us to understand how we got to where we are and to even consider thinking about how we’re going to move forward from this place.”
Emancipation had a limited theatrical in December before its release on Apple TV+ on December 9. It has garnered five NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, Outstanding Ensemble Cast, Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture and Outstanding Costume Design.
Bower continued: “I fully support this film. Our association supports this film. Obviously, our nominating committee decided that it was worthy of five nominations. Now it’s up for the public to decide who the winners will be. But this film and several others do an excellent job of, of telling stories in a very authentic fashion that we all must avail ourselves to.”
Click the video above to watch the conversation. WARNING: The discussion includes sensitive language.
