Rosewood
by John Singleton
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Bruce McGill, Don Cheadle, Jon Voight, Loren Dean, Ving RhamesDirector: John Singleton
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
Running Time: 142 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Rosewood
Movie Review: Too Painful to Watch Alone...
Summary: 5 Stars
... despite the mitigation of a Hollywood love story and a fictitious super-hero, but still not as painful as the TRUTH, the true and well-documented story of an ethnic cleansing in Florida in 1923, when, over several days, European-American mobs attacked the peaceful and prosperous African-American village of Rosewood, in Levy County. During the attack, survivors estimated, as many as eighteen African-Americans and two European-Americans were. Most of the buildings, including churches and a school, were burned. The community was abandoned and, in spite of permanent loss of land and homes, the citizens never returned. Women and children were rescued, as shown in this film, by the crew of the train that regularly stopped at the village. Given the three days of carnage, news of the events reached national newspaper attention. Reporters actually began to arrive on the scene. The governor of Florida was alarmed and asked the nearest local authorities if help was wanted from the National Guard; the sheriff replied that he didn't want help. After the event, the governor did convene an inquest, but no prosecutions or efforts to assist the refugees resulted.
Even without further attention from the outside world, the Rosewood Massacre would have been one of the most atrocious and obvious acts of ethnic/racial "cleansing" in America's history. In 1992, however, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times uncovered evidence of the fate of Rosewood and published a story. That story led to national scrutiny. In 1993, aged survivors descendants of survivors of the Massacre sued the state of Florida for compensation. Confronted by undeniable evidence, the Florida Legislature passed a compensation bill of $2,100,000 and established a scholarship fund for Rosewood descendants. Public opinion in Florida was incensed at such acknowledgement of racism in the state's past; letters written to the legislators ran ten to one against any compensation or recognition of the truth.
Events in Rosewood in 1923 were probably far less picturesque than those shown in this film. Jon Voight does a splendid job of acting in the role of a white store-keeper caught between his own safety and his humanity. Ving Rhames is almost persuasive in his role as the "lone ranger" WW1 veteran -- the African-American stranger who rescues the children. Don Cheadle is impressive as the Rosewood music teacher who decides to fight back. All three characters are fictional, but perhaps only cinematographic fiction can begin to suggest the horror that the citizens of Rosewood experienced when their fellow Americans decided to wipe their community off the face of the Earth.
Summary of Rosewood
A shameful chapter in American history is powerfully dramatized in Rosewood, but moviegoers in 1997 may not have been ready for the African American equivalent of Schindler's List. And while the massacre that occurred in the nearly all-black town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1922 cannot compare in scale to the Nazi holocaust, it potently illustrates the same issues of racism and inherited intolerance that percolate at every level of human existence. An estimated 40 to 150 blacks were killed in Rosewood by an all-white lynch mob from the neighboring town of Sumner, where a white woman falsely claimed she'd been assaulted by a black man. The resulting mayhem ignited a tinderbox of resentment toward the flourishing citizens of Rosewood, and those few who survived were so traumatized that they remained silent until the truth was revealed by an investigative journalist in 1982.The film is blessed with richly authentic production design, lush cinematography, and a subtly effective John Williams score, and director John Singleton and screenwriter Gregory Poirier embellish the truth of Rosewood with a fictional hero named Mann (Ving Rhames), who arrives to buy a five-acre plot coveted by Rosewood's white grocer (John Voight). The emerging trust between these two characters--and the fate of an extended family led by a defiant father (Don Cheadle)--gives shape to the movie's devastating depiction of racism and the courage of those who opposed the lynch mob's brutality. Singleton and Poirier fall prey to some bad dialogue and a broadly unbalanced depiction of bloodthirsty hayseeds, but the film's passion is maintained by its superb cast and the timeless echoes of history. --Jeff Shannon
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