There is an editing choice about a third of the way into RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys that is so brilliant that it almost beggars belief. In order to preserve one of the film’s many beautiful revelations, I will not describe it in detail here. All I will reveal is that the sequence in question is repeated near the end of the film with greater context and our own greater understanding, and that repetition retroactively serves to give deeper meaning to the first time we see it. We have a … new perspective, if you will.
And, that’s what Ross’ film is about: perspective. Who sees what when? Who feels seen by whom? Who matters to whom and why? All of these questions lie at the heart of one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking, and artfully crafted films of the year. I had the good fortune to see an advance screening of the film Sunday night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica followed by a Q&A with Ross, who directed, produced, and co-wrote the film, and star Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
The discussion was thoughtful, intelligent, and enlightening, proving that Ross and Ellis-Taylor are swimming in a deeper end of the pool than most folks in the business. The conversation, moderated by The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey, touched on the film’s innovative POV camerawork, the history of Black culture as depicted in photography of the Old South, and the art of blending historical fact with narrative fiction.
Based on Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel, The Nickel Boys – note that Ross intentionally drops the definite article – the film follows the story of Elwood Curtis, a gifted young Black boy in 1960s Florida who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and at the mercy of a justice system that cannot or willfully will not see him. Through a terrible happenstance, Elwood, played with conviction and determination by Ethan Herisse (Ethan Cole Sharpe plays a younger version of the character in earlier scenes), is remanded to the Nickel Academy, a “reform school”-cum-slave labor camp for wayward Southern youth.
While there, Elwood befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson) and learns the hard way about “the way things are.” Meanwhile, Hattie (Ellis-Taylor), Elwood’s grandmother, is determined to fight the system, consulting with a lawyer who calls the conviction a “miscarriage of justice.” He is more than happy to take on Elwood’s appeal – for a price. One of the film’s most pivotal scenes comes when Hattie visits Elwood at the academy and describes her dealings with the lawyer.
Ellis-Taylor and Ross dove deep into this specific scene during the Q&A, as it was Ellis-Taylor’s first day of shooting on the film and a fascinating microcosm of the challenges and opportunities presented by filming from the first-person POV. The performer revealed that the very process necessitated by the unique shooting style invited her to incorporate that sense of dissociation and invisibility into the character.
The film camera traditionally is impartial. The way artists use the camera often speaks to a larger agenda – we’ll get more into that in a second – but the camera itself records and refracts the reality set before it. As such, it is not a great scene partner, which Ellis-Taylor said allowed her to tap into the part of Hattie that feels unseen and unheard by an uncaring justice system. The actress is remarkable in the scene, and one particular moment speaks to just how remarkable.
Ross talked about how he and cinematographer Jomo Fray planned out nearly all the movements of the camera, which always reflects the POV of either Elwood or Turner. Is the character looking down at the ground, looking to the sky, making eye contact, etc.? In the scene, the original plan was for the camera to be looking down at a picnic table during Ellis-Taylor’s monologue, reflecting the Elwood character’s sadness and inability to connect with his grandmother after all he has endured.
The camera does this briefly, then in an improvised moment on Ellis-Taylor’s part, Hattie slams her hand down on the table and demands that her grandson – Elwood, the camera, we – look her in the eye. Slowly, the camera does so. The moment feels real. It feels right. Ross said the action reminded him to think of the camera as a scene partner, as a character, not simply a recorder of events. Ultimately, that ethos – the audience as camera; the camera as character – underscores the entire film.
Nickel Boys has been rightly lauded for its cinematography, but I came away floored by the film’s editing. Ross and editor Nicholas Monsour, who cut Jordan Peele’s Us and Nope, deftly weave between two main points of view, while also incorporating archival photographs, home movies, and news footage of the Apollo 8 mission to the moon.
Ross used a question about this archival footage as a way to get into a discussion about the use of historical Black photos to caricature and dehumanize the Black experience. The well-meaning but shortsighted photographers who captured “Black Southern life” in the 1930s-60s had neither the insight nor the curiosity to question the validity of the images they gathered. These images fit their preconceived narrative, or agenda, and that was all that mattered.
This film is a corrective to the historical record and proof that great art is necessary to fill in the gaps of poorly chronicled history. (Side note: Mati Diop’s tremendous documentary Dahomey covers similar territory from a totally different angle; see it if you can.) In so doing, Ross grants these lives the dignity and respect they have long been denied.
The Apollo 8 footage is particularly profound in this respect. Why Apollo 8? Why not Apollo 11, the self-evidently more historically important mission? Because Apollo 8 – and this information is subtly relayed in the film – was the first mission to photograph an earthrise. That is, the earth rising over the horizon of the moon. It’s a glorious new perspective on our place in the universe.
That’s how far humanity had come by this point. We could photograph ourselves from the far side of the moon. For the first time, we could truly see ourselves. And yet, back here at home, we refused to see each other. What makes Nickel Boys such a brilliant film is that it insists that we see each other, that we hear each other, and that we understand each other.
