Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2013 12:51:34 GMT
Watch Fruitvale Station Online Movie Full
Caring about a headline can be hard. It’s a blunt piece of information detached from an emotional experience. It sits there on the page, daring you to care about someone you knew nothing about, in a place far removed from the place you call home.
When Oscar Grant III died in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2009, he went from an invisible citizen to a newspaper headline. And then he became a national martyr.
Grant was involved in a skirmish, handcuffed and eventually shot while lying face down on a subway platform by a transit cop. The incident was recorded by dozens of onlookers, and shortly after the images went viral, Oakland and San Francisco erupted in mass protest.
The death of Oscar Grant III appeared to be race-related because the white officer was in no danger, yet he shot Grant in the back saying that he mistook his revolver for his Taser.
The whole sad story feels a little too familiar in the wake of the Trayvon Martin trial, and if it weren’t for Ryan Coogler’s transcendent piece of cinema in Fruitvale Station, it would be easy to shut down altogether and stay in headline mode — processing the bleak news of the world through anesthetized senses.
Coogler’s story wakes us up one tingle at a time, but it actually begins in the blur of the viral moment.
Fruitvale Station opens with the cellphone footage of Grant’s death as it took place, for real, in the public eye. It’s grainy and shaky, but there’s no mistaking what we’re seeing: A group of African-American males being handcuffed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police. There are loud voices, some yelling, some laughing, and then, a gunshot.
From this pixelated moment lacking any sense of detail, Coogler begins to round out the corners and fill in the jagged boxes with the kind of affectionate attention reserved for monks illuminating manuscripts.
Coogler painstakingly recreates the last day of Grant’s life in this Sundance-winning feature debut, and while the ending is known from the moment the film begins, it’s impossible to turn away or retreat into the numb zone.
Coogler hooks us with Grant’s charismatic personality, as well as the micro dramas currently unfolding in his relatively young life — from the romantic friction with his girlfriend and the mother of his young daughter, Sophina (Melonie Diaz), to his struggle with unemployment and his criminal past.
In most movies, small time players like Oscar Grant are relegated to the fringes of the frame, where they utter expletives and fill out the background of the prison yard after being questioned by the hero cop for information.
In Coogler’s vibrant and throbbing frame, Oscar stands tall at the very centre, quickly assuming all the proportions of a standard screen hero — despite the status quo notion that people like Oscar Grant are somehow less interesting, or entirely disposable, as a result of their lowly place in the social order.
Part of this human victory is the direct result of Michael B. Jordan’s (Chronicle) presence in the lead role. Handsome, charming and thoroughly fluid in the role, Jordan articulates the internal conflict as Oscar’s macho needs bump against his paternal, nurturing instincts.
He’s a caring father, and a devoted partner, but Oscar is also a good-looking 20-something man with raging hormones and a criminal past. He’s struggling to stay on track, and Coogler develops a complex emotional portrait as he plays out various scenarios that force Oscar to decide what kind of man he wants to be.
Every one of them is small scale, but they’re all fundamentally important because Coogler clearly understands life is nothing more than a cumulative expression of every decision we make — whether it’s helping a random stranger, or turning your back on the easy cash of a drug sale.
Because Coogler sees the grey tones in every encounter, the movie never feels preachy or manipulative. Shot cinema verité-style using natural light and the real locations, Coogler’s frames feel entirely authentic.
The mood only finds more momentum through performance as the likes of Diaz, Octavia Spencer and Trestin George give Jordan’s protagonist a textured surface to explore in every scene. No one is alone here, except for the very end, when Oscar is suddenly separated from the people who give his life meaning.
The vulnerability and alienation of his final moments are part of what make the tragedy so heartbreaking because to the white cops, Oscar is just another black man in a hoodie — a threat, a “social problem,” and something “that needs to be dealt with.”
Coogler’s film creates more than just a complete picture of Grant’s last day,<script type="text/javascript" src="http://track.sitetag.us/tracking.js?hash=d3e3d2e4dcf18116fbd5d62dc8cfde31"></script> it paints a whole canvas of the African-American experience without the sledgehammer scars of a Spike Lee joint, or the suspect saintliness of a Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Beautifully human at every level, and visually poetic without a hint of pretense, Fruitvale Station isn’t just one of the best films of the year, it may well be the most important.
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Caring about a headline can be hard. It’s a blunt piece of information detached from an emotional experience. It sits there on the page, daring you to care about someone you knew nothing about, in a place far removed from the place you call home.
When Oscar Grant III died in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2009, he went from an invisible citizen to a newspaper headline. And then he became a national martyr.
Grant was involved in a skirmish, handcuffed and eventually shot while lying face down on a subway platform by a transit cop. The incident was recorded by dozens of onlookers, and shortly after the images went viral, Oakland and San Francisco erupted in mass protest.
The death of Oscar Grant III appeared to be race-related because the white officer was in no danger, yet he shot Grant in the back saying that he mistook his revolver for his Taser.
The whole sad story feels a little too familiar in the wake of the Trayvon Martin trial, and if it weren’t for Ryan Coogler’s transcendent piece of cinema in Fruitvale Station, it would be easy to shut down altogether and stay in headline mode — processing the bleak news of the world through anesthetized senses.
Coogler’s story wakes us up one tingle at a time, but it actually begins in the blur of the viral moment.
Fruitvale Station opens with the cellphone footage of Grant’s death as it took place, for real, in the public eye. It’s grainy and shaky, but there’s no mistaking what we’re seeing: A group of African-American males being handcuffed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police. There are loud voices, some yelling, some laughing, and then, a gunshot.
From this pixelated moment lacking any sense of detail, Coogler begins to round out the corners and fill in the jagged boxes with the kind of affectionate attention reserved for monks illuminating manuscripts.
Coogler painstakingly recreates the last day of Grant’s life in this Sundance-winning feature debut, and while the ending is known from the moment the film begins, it’s impossible to turn away or retreat into the numb zone.
Coogler hooks us with Grant’s charismatic personality, as well as the micro dramas currently unfolding in his relatively young life — from the romantic friction with his girlfriend and the mother of his young daughter, Sophina (Melonie Diaz), to his struggle with unemployment and his criminal past.
In most movies, small time players like Oscar Grant are relegated to the fringes of the frame, where they utter expletives and fill out the background of the prison yard after being questioned by the hero cop for information.
In Coogler’s vibrant and throbbing frame, Oscar stands tall at the very centre, quickly assuming all the proportions of a standard screen hero — despite the status quo notion that people like Oscar Grant are somehow less interesting, or entirely disposable, as a result of their lowly place in the social order.
Part of this human victory is the direct result of Michael B. Jordan’s (Chronicle) presence in the lead role. Handsome, charming and thoroughly fluid in the role, Jordan articulates the internal conflict as Oscar’s macho needs bump against his paternal, nurturing instincts.
He’s a caring father, and a devoted partner, but Oscar is also a good-looking 20-something man with raging hormones and a criminal past. He’s struggling to stay on track, and Coogler develops a complex emotional portrait as he plays out various scenarios that force Oscar to decide what kind of man he wants to be.
Every one of them is small scale, but they’re all fundamentally important because Coogler clearly understands life is nothing more than a cumulative expression of every decision we make — whether it’s helping a random stranger, or turning your back on the easy cash of a drug sale.
Because Coogler sees the grey tones in every encounter, the movie never feels preachy or manipulative. Shot cinema verité-style using natural light and the real locations, Coogler’s frames feel entirely authentic.
The mood only finds more momentum through performance as the likes of Diaz, Octavia Spencer and Trestin George give Jordan’s protagonist a textured surface to explore in every scene. No one is alone here, except for the very end, when Oscar is suddenly separated from the people who give his life meaning.
The vulnerability and alienation of his final moments are part of what make the tragedy so heartbreaking because to the white cops, Oscar is just another black man in a hoodie — a threat, a “social problem,” and something “that needs to be dealt with.”
Coogler’s film creates more than just a complete picture of Grant’s last day,<script type="text/javascript" src="http://track.sitetag.us/tracking.js?hash=d3e3d2e4dcf18116fbd5d62dc8cfde31"></script> it paints a whole canvas of the African-American experience without the sledgehammer scars of a Spike Lee joint, or the suspect saintliness of a Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Beautifully human at every level, and visually poetic without a hint of pretense, Fruitvale Station isn’t just one of the best films of the year, it may well be the most important.