Film Analysis - Week 34 - 13th (2016)

Film Analysis – Week 34

13^th (2016) – Directed by Ava DuVernay

Starring: Jelani Cobb, Angela David and Henry Louis Gates

This film is a documentary about the USA’s 13^th constitutional amendment and the history of coloured people in the country. The USA is known for having one of the most rich histories with black and coloured people, due to the amount of criminality involved with the government process, the way in which supposed criminals were treated and the exploitation of their needs and status. This film heavily looks at the influence of different governing parties from the time of the abolition of slavery until the present day, where over 2 million American people are in prison, many through undue processes, wrong-fully convicted or victim to the system that was built against them. The film uses an interview style with constant reference to topical and appropriate materials, it uses songs, videos, speeches and analyses many choice cases from over the years and how it has affected the criminal system and the state of the American government. This film explores themes of imprisonment, justice, crime, violence, brutality, slavery and government.

The use of the interview process in this film is useful for gaining perspectives from people on the community and seeing their sides and opinions of the matter, it seems like the people who speak in the film and the filmmakers themselves are quite in agreement as to what is going on here. Since the film explores such a wide time frame and so much content it can be hard to establish the main goal of the film and the message that they filmmakers aimed to leave the audience with, however most of the film’s statements revolve around the corruption behind the prison industrial complex and the justice system in the United States. The cast of interviewees in the film range from formerly imprisoned people to literary scholars, government officials and party leaders for all kinds of black right and rights regarding the prison system. A trend across of the interviewees in the film is that they all come to the conclusion that coloured people in America have been treated wrongly for a generation and that it is impossible to ignore history. This technique allows the filmmakers to strongly prove a point and to get the audience thinking in a way. Even though this film is targeted at the general public and especially the citizens of America, it is used to target people who either run these corrupt systems or are oblivious/in denial about the fact these horrendous criminal and prison complex corruptions are constantly going on 24/7. By hearing about all of these cases in similar ways from all of these various different kinds of people, from both different ethnic backgrounds and different experience, it allows the audience to make an informed decision as to their standing on the matter, the film provides a wide array of evidence.

The film constantly recycles and associate the film with structure and a graphical interface early on in the film. Similar to a TV show in which the audience get used to the format of the show and therefore know what to expect and can better fully understand the point of the show, the filmmakers establish a structured system in which the film goes through the ages of the prison complex and how it has evolved since the time of slavery. By relating the number of inmates in their prisons nationally over time with the political parties at the time and the particular events at the time, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it allows the audience to mentally put together a time frame of this tragedy. It puts the situation into perspective and means that people can better understand the implications of the documentary.