Denzel Washington Experience

The Denzel Washington Experience Everyone has a favorite actor/actress that they like for whatever reason. For as long as I can remember my favorite actor has been Denzel Washington. I have always admired the characters he has created and the depth of emotion he brings to these characters. I have seen much of his work and have noticed similarities between his movie roles. In many of Denzel Washington’s movies he portrays an honest everyman bravely confronting social injustice. Remember the Titans (2000), The Hurricane (1999), and John Q (2002) are archetypical roles.
Remember the Titans (2000) directed by Boaz Yakin is based on the real life story of Coach Herman Boone. Mr. Washington portrays an African-American man who is the newly appointed head football coach of T.C. Williams High School, during the first year of school desegregation in Alexandria, Virginia in the early 1970’s (Social Movement). This was to be the first desegregated school in the region. At that time, this was a very controversial hiring because he was given the head coaching position because he was “the only black head coach”. Coach Boone was hired over a very successful white head coach, Coach Bill Yoast. This was a time in history when the NACCP and African-Americans were fighting for equality in America. Washington plays a strong-willed African-American man who stands on the forefront of race relations and tries to prove that he can get the job done and be a successful football coach - regardless of race. The whole basis of the desegregation movement was rooted in of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which challenged the doctrine of “separate, but equal”. The court ultimately decided that racially segregated schools are in fact inherently unequal. As a result, orders were sent out nationwide to integrate the schools “with all deliberate speed”. As one might imagine, opposition - especially in the south - was very intense. Black students faced constant hazing from angry whites that were stuck in their ways. In many areas government officials would actually stand outside the front of schools and refuse entry to black students. In one case in Arkansas integration was only achieved by a powerful show of force by federal troops. The movie starts out during the summer of 1971 in Alexandria, Virginia with the news of the integration and creation of T.C. Williams High School and the appointment of Coach Boone as head coach. Next we are taken to a restaurant where Coach Yoast is telling his white players that he has decided to take a year off from coaching. In response the players say they will boycott the season by sitting out the season. After a meeting with Coach Boone, Yoast decides to stay on the staff to help ease racial tension. Tension between the two groups of players and coaches is evident right from the very first team meeting (depicted below). At that first meeting Coach Boone has all of the black players line up and goes down the line to get their names and preferred positions. Then, unexpectedly, Coach Yoast enters the gym with his players and forms a “separate-but-equal” line on the right side of the gym across from the African-American players. Yakin captures this juxtaposition and Coach Boone’s role as a bridge between the two groups with camera angle and blocking to accurately depict the racial tension that is evident throughout the first half of the film.

The next part of the movie details an historic two-week preseason training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Over these two weeks the players are forced to spend time with each other and get to know each other. Fights arise amongst the players but friendships also form. One activity that Coach Boone uses to unite his team is to have players interview teammates of the other race until they have met every teammate. Yakin continues to use left/right scene blocking as a visual echo of racial division.
(Meeting between captains Julius Campbell and Gerry Bertier) Ultimately, at the end of the two weeks the team is getting along much better. Racial divisions are somewhat eased and they have actually started to become friends. As a team they have learned to begin to trust one another. Visually the movie screen shots become more integrated as well like in the scene below when the players go on a team run to the battlefield of Gettysburg. As you can see there is no divison of the players.

However, when the team returns to Alexandria the players find the city in turmoil due to the forced desegregation of the high school. The teams newly formed friendships are challenged by conventional society. Prior to the first game of the season Coach Boone is given some bad news by a school administrator/friend saying that the school board plans to fire him upon the team’s first loss and turn the program back over to Coach Yeast. This is a very dramatic scene in the movie as Denzel Washington expresses his frustrations to this administrator. The audience can really empathize with Coach Boone’s seemingly lose/lose situation. In this scene Bruckheimer makes use of deep focus photography that was popularized by cinematographer Gregory Toland in Citizen Kane to emphasize Mr. Washington’s emotions in the context of his surroundings. This technique is used in most of the football sideline scenes as well. According to Cook deep focus is a “technique that exploits depth of field to render subjects near the camera lens and far away with equal clarity and permits the composition of the image in depth(933). Another common film technique used in Remember the Titans is the use of crosscutting. This is “ the juxtaposing shots from two or more sequences, actions, or stories to suggest parallel action” (Cook 932). This is a very commonly used technique in sports movies.
(Deep focus photography)

As the season progresses the team’s success caused the community to embrace the changes. The best example of this is a scene where Julius Campbell is about to cross the street to visit Gary Bertier in an all white neighborhood. A policeman slowly pulls up beside Julius. Julius at first is taken off guard and by his reaction and shaky voice suggests he thinks he is trouble, but then he is put at ease when the white policeman congratulations on the previous weeks victory and adds “that was the best defense I have seen in thirty years. ‘You tell that coach of yours to keep up the good work”. The football team goes through the entire regular season and regional tournament with an undefeated record and advances to the state championship game. As in any good Disney sports movie, the Titans win the game on a last second play. Fittingly, the last camera shot from the celebration shows Coach Boone and Coach Yoast holding up the game ball. These camera shots that were seen to represent racial tension and division now represent togetherness.

Coach Boone from Remember the Titans is not the only racial charged role Denzel Washington has played in his career. In The Hurricane directed by Norman Jewison, Denzel portrays Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a famous/successful middleweight boxer during the 1950’s and 1960’s. The film narrates his life concentrating on the period 1966 to 1985 and his fight against an unjust conviction based purely on racial bigotry. Washington’s acting is phenomenal as his character attempts to mentally transcend his physical jail. In a parallel plot, an underprivileged youth from Brooklyn, Lesra Martin, becomes interested in Carter’s life and destiny after reading Carter’s autobiography, and convinces his Canadian foster family to commit themselves to his case. There are several film techniques used to help tell this dramatic story. To more accurately portray the actual night of the murder Jewison makes extensive use of Flashbacks. This simply is a “shot, scene, sequence, or (sometimes) major part of a film inserted into the narrative present in order to recapitulate the narrative past” (933). Through these series of flashbacks, first hand conversations with Rubin Carter and the retracing of the case by the Canadians, the audience is led through the story of the unjust sentence. The third Denzel Washington film is John Q (2002). In this film Denzel Washington stars as John Quincy Archibald, a factory worker facing financial hardship as a result of reduced hours in his workplace. When his young son, Michael, is stricken during a baseball game, John and his wife, Denise, discover that their child is in need of an emergency heart transplant. Although the Archibald’s have health insurance, hospital administrator Rebecca Payne informs them that their policy doesn’t cover such an expensive procedure. Unable to raise the money, the hospital refuses to perform the surgery. With no recourse but to take his son home to die, John snaps and holds the staff and patients of the hospital’s emergency room hostage at gunpoint.

(Denzel determined to save his son)

John is soon a media hero for his actions. All John wants is for his son to be put on the organ transfer list and at one point is about to commit suicide so his son can have his organ and live. The hospital administrator and negotiator get find a proper donor just in time. John Archibald is eventually arrested and serves a relatively small sentence for what he did. Washington’s character helps point out the growing problem of Health Care in this country. I don’t think anyone would argue against Denzel Washington being considered one of the greatest actors of his time. He has had a very prestigious and enduring career that includes winning numerous awards such as his two Oscars victories for his roles in Training Day (2001) and Glory (1998). What makes Washington so great is that his characters are so diverse and often bring up social issues. Another thing that makes Washington a brilliant is the realness of emotions to his character that jumps off the screen at the audience.

Works Cited
Cook, David. A History of Narrative Film. 4th edition. Editor: Peter Simon. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
John Q. Dir. Nick Cassavetes. Perf. Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, and Gabriela Oltean. New Line Cinema, 2002.
The Hurricane. Dir. Norman Jewison. Perf. Denzel Washington, Deborah Unger, Vicellous Shannon, John Hannah. Universal Pictures, 1999.
Remember the Titans. Dir. Boaz Yakin. Perf. Denzel Washington, Will Patton, and Wood Harris. Jerry Bruckheimer Films, 2000.
Pictures:
Gary and Julius: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=julius+campbell+remember+the+titans&view=detail&id=3AA59ABA954FB5B9CD776C5EDE9CB11C9DCA8191&first=61&FORM=IDFRIR
Team after run: http://jaymckinnon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/remember-the-titans-training-e1269190135138.jpg
Coach and Sunshine: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Rememeber+the+titans&view=detail&id=91A30112791CF7571BE262B31E48B003D066C7A1&first=0&qpvt=Rememeber+the+titans&FORM=IDFRIR
Coach Yoast and Boone: http://images.starpulse.com/Photos/Previews/Remember-the-Titans-06.jpg
John Q: http://s11.allstarpics.net/images/orig/i/i/iivoqiu9sx6ss69.jpg