The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till

Last updated
The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
Directed by Keith Beauchamp
Distributed by ThinkFilm
Release date
2005
Running time
68 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till is a 2005 documentary film about the murder of Emmett Till. It was directed by Keith Beauchamp. The film contributed to the case being reopened by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Contents

Background

In August 1955, 14-year-old African American Emmett Till was murdered for whistling at a white woman at a store in Money, Mississippi. The woman's relatives kidnapped Till and murdered him, leaving his body in a river. Till's mother held an open-casket funeral for her son to the public to demonstrate the brutality of racism in the Southern United States. The accused murderers were acquitted despite large amounts of evidence for their involvement in the murder. [1]

Production

In 1996, Beauchamp began investigating the crime as part of a planned documentary feature. [2] His research and work conducting interviews for the film took over nine years, and ultimately contributed to the case being reopened by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. [3] [4] [5] The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till was the first film to investigate the murder and was the second film to be released about it, after The Murder of Emmett Till aired on PBS. [6]

Plot

The film examines the circumstances surrounding the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, and claims that fourteen people were involved. This number included five black employees of the five white men implicated in the murder, "as well as the woman that Till whistled at".

The film is interspersed with interviews, as well as television and news video that includes the men who were accused of the murder. Beauchamp interviews multiple eyewitnesses who were previously scared of retaliation. Beauchamp interviewed Emmett's cousins who were at the house during the kidnapping. [3] The film has the victim's mother, Mamie Till, reminisce about her son's life and his murder. [7]

Home media

The film was released on DVD by ThinkFilm in 2005. The DVD includes an audio commentary by the director and a theatrical trailer. [8]

Reception

Ronnie Scheib of Variety wrote, "Beauchamp expertly excerpts long stretches from the extensive television coverage of the 1955 events, juxtaposing them with present-day interviews with the people who lived though these traumatic happenings." [6] Kam Williams of BlackFilm said, "Now, filmmaker Keith Beauchamp has successfully embarrassed the Feds into re-opening the case. [...] in researching and conducting interviews for his damning documentary, The Untold Story of Emmett Till." [7]

Neely Tucker of The Washington Post said, "That is what is known as poetry, and it is frustrating the documentary doesn't have more of it. For a movie that bills itself as "untold," there's no "gee-whiz" moment of revelation. There are many fine interviews, apparently some of them new, but there is no narration to tell us which ones." [9]

The film won the National Board of Review Award in 2005 for Special Recognition of Films That Reflect Freedom of Expression. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmett Till</span> African American lynching victim (1941–1955)

Emmett Louis Till was an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

<i>The Thin Blue Line</i> (1988 film) 1988 documentary directed by Errol Morris

The Thin Blue Line is a 1988 American documentary film by Errol Morris, about the trial and conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the 1976 shooting of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. Morris became interested in the case while doing research for a film about Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist known in Texas as "Dr. Death" for testifying with "100 percent certainty" of a defendant's recidivism in many trials, including that of Randall Adams. The film centered around the "inconsistencies, incongruities and loose ends" of the case, and through his investigation, not only comes to a different conclusion, actually obtained an admission of Adams' innocence by the original suspect of the case, David Harris. The "thin blue line" in the title "refers to what Mr. Morris feels is an ironic, mythical image of a protective policeman on the other side of anarchy".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lamar Smith (activist)</span> African-American civil rights activist

Lamar "Ditney" Smith was an American civil rights figure, African-American farmer, World War I veteran and an organizer of voter registration for African-Americans. In 1955, he was shot dead in broad daylight around 10 a.m. at close range on the lawn of the Lincoln County courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

William Bradford Huie was an American writer, investigative reporter, editor, national lecturer, and television host. His credits include 21 books that sold over 30 million copies worldwide. In addition to writing 14 bestsellers, he wrote hundreds of articles that appeared in all of the major magazines and newspapers of the day.

Keith Beauchamp is an American filmmaker based in Brooklyn and best known for his extensive investigation of and films about the lynching of Emmett Till.

<i>A Man Vanishes</i> 1967 film

A Man Vanishes is a 1967 Japanese pseudo documentary film by director Shōhei Imamura about a film team's search for a man reported missing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Till</span> American soldier, father of Emmett Till

Louis Till was an African American GI during World War II. After enlisting in the United States Army following trial for domestic violence against his estranged wife Mamie Till, and having chosen military service over jail time, Louis Till was court-martialed on two counts of rape and one count of murder in Italy. He was found guilty and was executed by hanging at Pisa. Louis Till was the father of Emmett Till, whose murder in August 1955 at the age of 14 galvanized the civil rights movement. The circumstances of Louis Till's death remained unknown to his family until they were revealed after the highly controversial acquittal of his son's murderers ten years later. Till's guilt would be called into question many years later via an analysis by John Edgar Wideman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Till</span> American schoolteacher and mother of Emmett Till

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a white woman, a grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral, in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Schwarz</span> American filmmaker

Jeffrey Schwarz is an American Emmy Award-winning film producer, director, and editor. He is known for an extensive body of documentary work including Boulevard! A Hollywood Story, The Fabulous Allan Carr, Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine, Vito, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon and Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story.

<i>The Most Dangerous Man in America</i> 2009 American film

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 documentary film directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. The film follows Daniel Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the top-secret military history of the United States' involvement in Vietnam.

<i>Behind the Burly Q</i> 2010 American film

Behind the Burly Q is a 2010 film documentary examining the golden age of American burlesque in the first half of the 20th century.

The Murder of Emmett Till is a 2003 documentary film produced by Firelight Media that aired on the PBS program American Experience. The film chronicles the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. He was brutally murdered by two white men after a white woman falsely claimed that he had whistled at and groped her.

<i>Bookers Place: A Mississippi Story</i> 2012 American film

Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story is a 2012 documentary film about Booker Wright, an African-American waiter who worked in a restaurant for whites only. In 1965, Wright appeared in Mississippi: A Self Portrait, a short NBC television documentary about racism in the American South. During his interview with producer Frank De Felitta, he spoke openly about racism, and his treatment as a waiter in an all-white restaurant. The broadcast of his remarks had catastrophic consequences for Wright.

Willie Louis was a witness to the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Till was an African-American child from Chicago who was murdered in 1955 after he had reportedly whistled at a white woman in a Money, Mississippi, grocery store. Till's murder was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Louis testified in court about what he had seen, but an all-white jury found the men not guilty. Fearing for his life, Louis moved to Chicago after the trial and changed his name from Willie Reed to Willie Louis. He was interviewed in 2003 for the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till and was interviewed the next year on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes.

James L. Hicks was a member of the black press from 1935 to 1977. He wrote a column for the Baltimore Afro-American advocating opportunities in the U.S. Army. Hicks covered school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas and Oxford, Mississippi, and his coverage of the Emmett Till murder trial in Sumner, Mississippi.

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is an Act of the United States Congress introduced by John Lewis (GA-5) that allows cold cases of suspected violent crimes committed against African Americans before 1970 to be reopened. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation on June 20, 2007, by a vote of 422 to 2. The U.S. Senate passed the legislation on September 24, 2008, by unanimous consent, and President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on October 7.

Jennifer Kroot is an American filmmaker whose films include the documentaries It Came From Kuchar (2009) and To Be Takei (2014).

Jacki Ochs is an American documentary filmmaker. Ochs has been producing and directing film and hybrid forms for over thirty years.

<i>Till</i> (film) 2022 film by Chinonye Chukwu

Till is a 2022 biographical drama film directed by Chinonye Chukwu and written by Michael Reilly, Keith Beauchamp, and Chukwu, and produced by Beauchamp, Reilly, and Whoopi Goldberg. It is based on the true story of Mamie Till-Bradley, an educator and activist who pursued justice after the murder of her 14-year-old son Emmett in August 1955. The film stars Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie and Jalyn Hall as Emmett. Kevin Carroll, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, Jayme Lawson, Tosin Cole, Sean Patrick Thomas, John Douglas Thompson, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Goldberg also appear in supporting roles.

I Am More than a Wolf Whistle: The Story of Carolyn Bryant Donham is a memoir by Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused the African-American 14-year-old Emmett Till of touching her hand and flirting with her at her store in 1955, an incident which led to his lynching. Written before 2008, the manuscript was originally planned for a 2036 posthumous release, but leaked by historian Timothy Tyson and released to the public in July 2022.

References

  1. ↑ "Emmett Till". History. April 20, 2021. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  2. ↑ Dewan, Shaila (2005-08-28). "How Photos Became Icon of Civil Rights Movement". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  3. 1 2 Ebert, Roger (October 13, 2005). "50 years later, doc reopens case". Roger Ebert. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Jimmy (October 21, 2005). "Another set of radical film reviews from CIMC". Chicago Independent Media Center. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  5. ↑ "End of Till case draws mixed response - Boston.com". archive.boston.com. Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  6. 1 2 Scheib, Ronnie (November 10, 2004). "The Untold Story Of Emmett Louis Till". Variety. Archived from the original on 2010-10-06. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  7. 1 2 Williams, Kam (February 2006). "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till DVD Review". BlackFilm. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  8. ↑ The untold story of Emmett Louis Till. OCLC   63148825 . Retrieved August 27, 2021– via WorldCat.
  9. ↑ Tucker, Neely (October 14, 2005). "A Hate Crime and a Courageous Love". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  10. ↑ "National Board of Review of Motion Pictures: Awards for 2005". National Board of Review. Archived from the original on 2008-03-04. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.