Loving -- Film Review
Loving
Directed
by Jeff Nichols
This a well crafted, touching story of Richard and Mildred
Loving, the interracial couple whose case at the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in
the striking down of so-called "miscegenation" laws, which forbade
marriage between interracial couples.
The case began in 1958 when the couple traveled from Virginia to
Washington, DC to marry and then returned to live in Virginia. The film recounts the saga of their plight
until the case was unanimously resolved in their favor by the Supreme Court in
1967.
The film is beautifully made with the lead roles performed with
great sensitivity by Joel Edgerton (Richard) and Ruth Negga (Mildred). Joel Edgerton did not have to learn a lot of
lines for his role. Richard Loving seems
to have been a man of very few words. He
elevated laconic to a higher exponent.
But his presence is very strong and Edgerton does an effective portrayal
in a rather difficult role.
There are three forces in society that tend to break down
racial and ethnic prejudices: music,
sports, and sex. This film illustrates
the third. The Virginia law, and others
like it mostly in the Southern states, were intended to maintain racial purity
and social separation between the races.
They were a holdover from the era
of slavery. In the slave era it was not
possible for a freeborn person to marry a slave. The miscegenation laws were a continuation of
that policy. Lust and desire do not always
respect those boundaries and thus the need for laws to suppress their inherent
unruliness. The United States has been
slowly progressing in the direction of delegitimizing and dismantling the
institutionalization of racial and ethnic
prejudices for a century and a half.
Delegitimizing a feeling or an attitude does not erase it from the
hearts and minds of people, but it does remove institutional and legal support
for it.
For example, living in present day San Francisco, this issue
doesn't even impinge on consciousness.
There is such a mix of ethnic and racial diversity, so many interracial
couples, and so many people of multiple racial and ethnic forbears that it is
hard to conceive how the carving of such lines and barriers could even be
meaningful. On the other hand, I used to
live in Chicago in the 1970s, and I knew a girl of Polish ancestry at that time
who had a black boyfriend. She could not
take him to her family home on the southwest side of Chicago. If they were to be seen walking down a public
street together in that neighborhood they would surely be attacked.
The United States has changed a lot in the last forty years
and the Loving case represents a watershed in that progressive trend. The film depicts the personal and human
impact of social bigotry and the struggle against it. Although the Lovings were not activists, and
Richard particularly had little social vision beyond his own plight, they
became caught up in a struggle that was much broader and much more momentous
than their own misfortune. It is an
outstanding film and people all around the world should see it and behold an
example of something that is good about America.