The Loving Story
This documentary film tells the dramatic story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple living in Virginia in the 1950s, and their landmark Supreme Court Case, Loving v. Virginia, that changed history.
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- Cast:
- Jane Alexander
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Reviews
This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
I wanted to but couldn't!
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) fall in love and want to get married when Mildred finds out she's pregnant. It's 1958 in Carolin County, Virginia and interracial marriages are illegal. They drive to Washington, D.C. to get married where it is legal and return to Virginia. The state does not recognize the marriage and they are arrested. The Lovings story and their legal case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court and becomes a landmark case in marriage laws.This is a movie everyone should see, it's a reminder to us all how different and difficult life was for a large part of the population or for those who did not follow societal laws.
I just saw "The Loving Story" this afternoon at the Traverse City Film Festival. The film is moving and inspirational, illustrating that sometimes even poor and minimally educated people can obtain justice within our court system. The story is straightforward and the ending is known, but the still photos and interview footage (some just recently discovered) of Richard and Mildred Loving shows a very genuine and touching relationship between them and their 3 children. Their quiet dignity in the face of racist laws and attitudes is inspirational. The ACLU once again is shown to be a force for justice to which people without money or power can turn. We were not lucky enough to have the Loving's daughter Peggy present (as was the case for aegriffin at Tribeca) but the director and writers Nancy Buirski and Susie Ruth Powell were here for a Q&A. Their story of how this documentary came to be is entertaining and emotional. The idea that this film should have been used (as suggested by another reviewer) as an "opportunity to investigate the legal process" leaves me puzzled. Unless one is an attorney, the film presents as much about the legal process as one would reasonably want to know. It is not a legal treatise, but rather a story of a couple in love who would not back down from what is right, and an affirmation that the US legal system can (in time) bring about a just outcome on some occasions.Everyone I saw it with gave this documentary their highest rating. You will not regret the time spent viewing this heart-warming slice of civil rights history. Kudos to Ms. Buirski & Powell.And Ms. Buirski did mention that the documentary will be shown on HBO in February 2012. I certainly plan to watch it again at that time. 9/10
This documentary is about the 1967 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case striking down anti-miscegenation statutes as unenforceable under the Fourteenth Amendment.I read about Loving v. Virginia in law school and marveled at the bravery of the couple in question (a white man and black woman) who were prosecuted for leaving their home state of Virginia to marry in D.C. and then returning to Virginia where they were harassed by law enforcement and ultimately prosecuted as felons for miscegenation.The documentary (which consists almost entirely of contemporaneous black and white footage) offers (and needs) little narration as the Lovings and their attorneys describe the events that led to the historical legal ruling.While interracial marriage attracts little notice in most populous areas of America today, at the time the Lovings were prosecuted (1958) 21 states had anti-miscegenation statutes on their books. (Indeed, notwithstanding the 1967 decision, the last state to repeal its anti-miscegenation law was Alabama in 2000.) I saw the film at the Tribeca Film Festival tonight and as a wonderful bonus, the Lovings' youngest child, Peggy Loving Fortune, appeared and shared her personal feelings and recollections. (Her parents are deceased; Mrs. Mildred Jeter Loving died of pneumonia in 2008, and Mr. Richard Loving died in a automobile accident in 1975.) The film was made in part by HBO, so perhaps HBO will air it at some point.
We have all been disturbed by the racial discrimination in the 50's and 60's (as we continue to be disturbed about discrimination today) and this movie did not educate us to any of the many nuances that could have made this an interesting compelling movie. There was nothing that set it apart from documentaries, about the same subject, that have preceded it. Sadly, the opportunity to investigate the legal process was glossed over. The movie took the easy way out by relying on archived home movies to tell the story. An investigation of the attorneys and their process in this case would have been enlightening, informative and infinitely more interesting. An important story to tell was unfortunately told in an uninteresting way. Very disappointing.