In 2019, Colson Whitehead published the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys. The novel fictionalizes Dozier School for Boys, a reformatory in Marianna, FL that was open from 1900 to 2011.
The school was known for its abuse, but it wasn’t until 2013, two years after its closure, that excavation began on mass graves. Some families were told their children died of illness or natural causes, while others were told only of disappearances, not knowing where their children were buried. Whitehead’s novel fictionalizes this experience through Elwood and Turner, two black boys with conflicting ideologies navigating the system together.
Filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross directed the film adaptation. Ross’s previous two film credits were documentaries, making this his narrative film debut. Nickel Boys uses the unconventional filming technique of orienting the film in the first person.
Switching perspectives between Elwood and Turner, the pain, loss, and sadness are felt directly by the audience. But so is the brotherhood, joy, and hope. Ross crafts a compelling narrative that immerses its viewers in his story.
The film begins in 1962, in Tallahassee, FL. The film and novel represent a different Tallahassee from the one we currently live in. Following Elwood’s gaze, we see the Black community in which Elwood is raised.
He has a close relationship with his grandmother, he joins freedom riders, and in one of the most poignant scenes, we see young Elwood reflected in a shop window as he watches Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Glimpses of Elwood are rare, but this scene contextualizes Elwood’s understanding of this historical moment through his identity.
Elwood’s arrest is representative of how many young black men were targeted by law enforcement in the Jim Crow South. Hitchhiking to his first day of accelerated learning classes at a local college, he unknowingly gets a ride from a man in a stolen car, leading to his arrest. With a justice system predisposed against him, Elwood is sent to Nickel Academy.
The school was positioned as an alternative to juvenile detention for young boys. However, they were forced to do intense manual labor, given poor education, and forced into poor living conditions that were exasperated by segregation in the Jim Crow South.
Yet, this is not what has led to the school’s infamy, but rather the school’s large number of deaths and the discovery of unmarked graves on the property. Starting upon the school’s closure, USF anthropologists and researchers began excavating both marked and unmarked graves on the campus.
81 boys died at Dozier, with many of their families given unclear explanations as to what happened. Survivors recount stories of the “White House,” a building where they were beaten to unconsciousness.
Dozier was open from 1900 to 2011, over 100 years. Throughout these years, former students brought forward claims of abuse, but the school remained open. Ross’s filmmaking allows the audience to understand the abuse boys experienced while attending Dozier.
Director RaMell Ross got his start as a photographer, and in this medium, he discovered how he could use point-of-view to contextualize the Black experience. This film is filled not just with these immersive shots but also with memories, clips of civil rights activists, photos of the real Dozier students, and dream-like sequences that bend reality and fantasy the way the human mind does.
This approach avoided the innate voyeurism that comes with filmmaking, especially when it comes to the Black experience.
“Traditional cinema is the person that’s walking by the homeless person on the street,” Ross said. “But then being the homeless person on the street and seeing people walk by is a different type of filmic experience.”
Ross is interested in forcing his audience to see the world through another set of eyes.
The film stars Ethan Herisse as Elwood, Brandon Wilson as Turner, Daveed Diggs as Older Elwood, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Hattie, Elwood’s Grandmother. The cast navigates this unconventional filming style seamlessly, with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor delivering one of the most devastating performances in the film.
Recently, the survivors of Dozier have been offered financial compensation from the Florida government to make up for the abuse they suffered. While this gesture does not make up for years of trauma, it is a step in the right direction. However, there is much to be said about the young boys who died while attending school here, and no gesture from the state can make up for this insurmountable loss. Whitehead and Ross hope that shedding light on this story will help it live on in the public consciousness, allowing their memories to live on.
Ross’s film orients his audience in the shoes of a young black boy in a way no other film has done. To miss out on this film would be to miss out on a modern-day American masterpiece. The film is still in theatres and was just released on streaming Feb. 28. It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture at the Oscars, and if there’s any nominee to check out this year, it’s this one!
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