Be It Resolved... | Denzel Washington instructs his students in the fine art of oratory in The Great Debaters.
THE GREAT DEBATERS
Directed by Denzel Washington. Starring Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Whitaker, John Heard. Opens Fri, Jan 18.
3 Stars
Many of the complaints about Oprah Winfrey stem from her ability to catapult any book, movie, or CD to success on the strength of her mere endorsement—the implication, of course, being that her audience is such a horde of hypnotized sheep that artistic merit doesn’t even matter to them—whether it’s a William Faulkner novel or a Josh Groban CD, it’s equally worthy of their attention. Still, love her or hate her, Winfrey’s emotional involvement in the pop culture she celebrates or helps create always seems genuine. And The Great Debaters, which she co-produced, tells true, uplifting, and eminently worthy story from the annals of American black history.
It’s the story of the Wiley College debate team, which rose to prominence in the 1930s as the first nationally successful debating club from a black college. As English professor Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington, who also directs) picks his four best students (or the ones with the most potential), the team racks up win after win as they break down barriers in the mostly white secondary education system.
At the same time, Tolson becomes the subject of a somewhat prejudiced investigation by a local sheriff (John Heard) thanks to his role in an attempt to unionize the local crop farmers, both black and white. Meanwhile, James Farmer Sr. (Forest Whitaker), who’s also a professor at Wiley and every inch a scholar, makes sure his eldest son (Denzel Whitaker, who, despite his name, is related to neither of the two leads) doesn’t let his studies slide as the debate team picks up steam.
As the team ploughs through the increasingly difficult debate circuit, Tolson tries to line up matches with teams from every prominent school in the country in hopes of challenging his obviously gifted students as much as possible. It all culminates in a sequence where the Wiley debaters, still reeling from having witnessed a black man being killed by a lynch mob, faces off against the top-ranked Harvard debate team.
It’s a compelling real-life story, albeit one that’s told a little too stodgily and tweaked a little too much with stock moments from the Dead Poets Society/Stand and Deliver/Freedom Writers formula. Washington, making his first foray into directing since 2002’s Antwone Fisher, gets the most out of the conflict between the intelligence of Tolson’s students and the backwards thinking that exists in white American society—including the supposedly “enlightened” halls of Ivy League academia. There’s a great scene, for instance, in which Tolson tells his students what a difficult task lies before them, pointing out the racism that’s embedded right there in the very etymology of the word “denigration.”
The Great Debaters may not ultimately be as empowering as Oprah hoped it would be, but it doesn’t miss the mark by much. It’s no Toni Morrison interview, but it sure beats the episode where she hauled that wagon of fat onstage.
