On R List of Movie Reviews
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Rosewood (1997)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
2/04, 5/17, 11/20
5/17:
The story of what happened in Rosewood, Florida, was untold for sixty years, and it occurred during the nadir of America's
race relations in the 20th century.
During the first week of January 1923, a white married woman in Sumner, a white town, was beaten up by a white lover; she ran
out of the house some while later to yell that a "nigger" did this to her. A mob of white men gathered, and Rosewood, a
nearby black town, was wiped out in a matter of days. Black residents were lynched. The state government of Florida knew of
the incident but did nothing. The town was never rebuilt, and no black residents talked about what happened until the
1980's.
Filled with great acting, Rosewood is a rare film about the dark history of racism which existed in the U.S. for
hundreds of years. It began with the genocide of American Indians in the 16th century and was well underway with the
enslavement of Africans. The real history of the United States isn't widely told in high schools because people in authority
don't want the kids to know just to keep their patriotism intact.
If there's anything to dislike, it's the introduction of fictional characters and the deviations from historical accounts. It
would've been nice if John Singleton told the story of how the events went down, but I understand that he wanted to give
some power back to black people in order to inflate their actions and not make them look weak in the face of white injustice.
All in all, Rosewood is worth watching and has done a lot of good by bringing the untold history to light but falls
to the classic Hollywood trap of rewriting history.
11/20:
Florida tried to hide its racist side by not acknowledging what happened in Rosewood for over 70 years, but it
was a black town that got completely massacred by white people and the state did nothing about it.
Hence, the film had to be made to remind everybody of what happened, and it's still powerful. Yeah, the truth is sort
of loose, but the main facts are still intact: a white married woman lied about being beaten and raped by a black man when
it was really her white lover who did it, and the rest was history.
Rosewood may be long, but what's incredible is the snowball effect: the situation just
keeps getting bigger and worse than ever. The only way it ends is when there's nothing left to destroy. Although not
an easy movie to watch, the cast is top-notch, and the performances are uniformly excellent.
All in all, in the tradition of The Ox-Bow Incident, Rosewood ranks among
the best in mob justice genre.