3/16/01
AU PROFESSOR CONTRIBUTES TO ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED FILM
AUBURN -- An Academy Award-nominated documentary film that details a shameful chapter in U.S. history gets much of its historial reference from Auburn University historian Wayne Flynt, who served as a consultant on the film.
"Scottsboro: An American Tragedy," is one of five films nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Feature category. The 73rd annual Academy Awards will air Sunday, March 25.
Flynt, a Distinguished University Professor at AU and an expert on Southern history, said he spent several hours in Birmingham being interviewed for the documentary.
"That was two years ago and, of course, you spend 10 times more filming than you actually show," he said.
Flynt was one of two historical consultants on the documentary, which showcases one of the most notorious episodes in American legal history.
Produced and directed by Barak Goodman and Daniel Anker, the 90-minute documentary film will premiere on the Public Broadcasting Service on April 2, as part of the national broadcast series "The American Experience." It will be the first national viewing of the film, before only shown at film festivals around the United States.
Flynt, who has not seen the film, said he is looking forward to the April 2 air date, adding: "I understand that it's a good film, that the directors and producers did a good job and I'm excited about seeing it."
In addition to Flynt's historical perspective, the film includes trial transcripts and editorials read by actors, including Frances McDormand and Stanley Tucci. Andr‚ Braugher delivers the narration.
The documentary reexamines the story of nine black males -- ranging in age from 13 to 19 -- who were tried, convicted and nearly executed after being accused of raping two white women near the north Alabama town of Scottsboro in 1931.
Using archival material and newly filmed interviews, Goodman and Anker evoke the mood of the era.
Thousands of people gathered outside the jail in Scottsboro, where the boys were awaiting trial. Because no one in the state would take the case, the defendants were poorly represented by a lawyer from Chattanooga, Tenn. All nine were convicted and condemned to death.
But the American Communist Party came to their defense, staging rallies nationwide. The party also hired Samuel Leibowitz, a famous defense lawyer from New York, to retry the case, and it appeared the boys might get a fair trial. Although he introduced enough evidence for acquittal, Leibowitz did not take into account the negative impact he was having on an all-white, Southern jury. The case was lost before he started.
Filmmakers convincingly argue that the Scottsboro Boys lost their first appeal primarily because of the animosity the jury had toward Leibowitz and explains how the case became an international cause, one that eventually sparked support for the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The film successfully takes viewers on a several-decade journey, following the boys from adolescence through their adult lives, where they became pawns in a fierce battle over race, politics and geography. Interviews with surviving witnesses, to the trials and letters written by the boys, vividly bring the case to life.
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CONTACT: Flynt, 334/844-6650.