Moving Pictures

A FILM ABOUT FILM: ‘DETROIT’ IS THE MOVIE YOU SHOULD BE STREAMING RIGHT NOW

BY JOE NOLAN, FILM CRITIC

A few days ago I was watching television as protesters clashed with police, authorities barricaded neighborhoods, the National Guard deployed into a metropolitan area and generational tensions that have been building for years finally boiled-over in the language of riots, destruction and looting.

Of course I’m describing any number of YouTube channel live streams and even location reports by mainstream media who’ve been covering the social unrest ignited by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn. But, I’m also talking about Kathryn Bigelow’s 2017 film, Detroit which is currently streaming on Hulu. The film dramatizes the conflict that exploded in Motor City after a police raid of an after-hours nightclub erupted into the bloodiest of the riots that rocked 159 cities in the United States during the long hot summer of 1967.

Bigelow’s film is centered on the “Algiers Motel incident” which occurred about a mile east of the riot’s 12 street epicenter. The motel was built in 1952 when Detroit was at the height of its powers, an emblem of America’s post-war prosperity. The motel served as a place for businessmen to stay overnight between flights to and from Motown, but 15 years

later, by the time of the riot, the Algiers had a reputation among local police as a flophouse for transients and prostitutes. And when the windows shattered and the fires broke out in Detroit on July 23, 1967, the Algiers became a refuge for a number of locals and out-oftowners seeking shelter away from the fray of arson and looting on 12th street.

Bigelow deploys vintage cars, costumes and hairstyles to evoke 1967 Detroit. She recreates the Algiers Motel’s gorgeous palm tree signage and fills storefront windows with kind of vintage consumer goods that once conferred a seal of domestic prosperity as much as they promised household convenience. Bigelow even recreates a Motown Records revue, which was

in the middle of a live performance at the Fox Theatre when the show ground to a halt so the audience could exit safely return to their homes ahead of the looming chaos.

Detroit is epic and intimate, sweeping and precise. It’s a historic tapestry constructed from the individual dramas that made-up the everyday lives of people sometimes literally caught in a crossfire. Bigelow’s handheld camerawork peers and rushes and jumps and dances all through Detroit as her narrative shifts between story lines and real life characters realized on screen with intense performances: Larry Reed (Algee Smith), the lead singer of The Dramatics, and his bodyguard, Fred Temple (Jacob Latrimore) check-in to the motel after their Fox Theatre gig gets canceled and their bus is attacked by rioters. Julie Ann Hysell (Hannah Murray) and Karen Malloy (Kaitlyn Dever) are two young girls visiting Detroit from Ohio and staying at the Algiers. Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega) is a security guard just trying to do his job and get home safe. Officer Philip Krauss (Will Poulter) leads the raid of the Algiers after a National Guard squad reports a possible sniper at the motel.

Bigelow also uses news footage and even animates artist Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series paintings to create context around the racial tensions that simmered to a scream in Detroit that summer.

Lawrence’s paintings of the Great Migration depict how Black Southerners migrated to cities like Detroit throughout the 20th century, abandoning agriculture in the Jim Crow South for industrial work in the Midwest. The 1967 riots resulted in another migration: White Flight saw throngs of safety-seeking middle class whites leave Detroit for affluent suburbs, precipitating the decades-long-decline of the city, which crashed into bankruptcy in 2013.

Detroit is currently streaming on Hulu. The film is available on DVD through the Nashville Public Library, which will begin offering curbside service at limited locations on June 8.

Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer.