Meaning and Truth in North Carolina

George Washington is an amazing, incredibly beautiful American film. It can be easy to forget that there are artists and thinkers in this country that really see things, that understand the world both at it’s most fundamental and most complex levels.

David Gordon Green’s films have always been a joy to watch. They’re insightful, they show real beauty, and they depict people struggling to gain understanding in a shifting yet, regretfully, far too predictable world. I saw both Undertow and the even more engaging All the Real Girls when they were released. But it somehow took me a few years to get around to watching George Washington, his first film.

The film takes place one summer in North Carolina, and depicts the coming of age of, primarily, four children just entering adolescence.

“I wish there was just one belief… my belief,” one of them says. And: “People have two faces: one they keep for the crowd, one they keep for themselves.”

It’s also a film about black kids in America that is not, primarily, to do with the idea of racial or ethnic identity. Yes, racial discrimination in the U.S. justice system is (necessarily) present in the film as it relates to the plot. Yet this is a film about a search for meaning and truth that transcends traditional race and class depictions and analyses.

In this sense, Green has progressed the idea of storytelling in American cinema beyond narrowly-defined norms. Which is surely a welcome development.

On the surface, Green’s films look nothing like those of Andrei Tarkofsky. Even the comparison might be surprising for some. Tarkofsky is much more stark, but both are about discovering meaning and truth. Green somehow manages to reach this point in a less obscure way. Tarkovksy is worth the effort, certainly, but films like George Washington also illuminate who we are, what’s basic and what’s important. And, ultimately, it’s not about who has a greater claim on truth. It’s about taking the time to see the world, to love its beauty and its flaws, to strive to make a difference where you can or where you are driven to. And to love.

Watching George Washington, you reach a point where you almost don’t notice that the cast are, primarily, children. That says something about the skill of this young director (he was 24 when he made this film). But more importantly, it reminds us that “non-adults,” especially black kids, are ignored in our system of bias and oppression. And that not only is this fundamentally unjust, but that we are missing a tremendous richness that can illuminate and point the way to the future.

This is an incredibly beautiful-looking film too. Roger Ebert called the cinematography, by Tim Orr, “the best of the year” when the film was released in 2001.

Really, you should check it out. It might remind you why hope and faith are still important in our world of rationality and power relations. And where hope does not exist, that perhaps it’s still possible to find beauty. And sometimes that is enough.

Comments

[vanessa]

welcome back!

[yomi]

now you make me want to watch this film!!!