Emperor (2020 film)

Emperor is a 2020 American historical drama film directed by Mark Amin, written by Mark Amin and Pat Charles. The film stars Dayo Okeniyi, James Cromwell, Kat Graham, and Bruce Dern.[1][2] It is based on the true story of a slave, Shields Green, nicknamed Emperor, who escaped to freedom and participated in abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry.

Emperor
Film poster
Directed byMark Amin
Produced by
Written by
Starring
Music byJavier Navarrete
CinematographyJeremy Rouse
Edited byAsaf Eisenberg
Distributed byBriarcliff Entertainment (USA)
Release date
  • 18 August 2020 (2020-08-18)
Running time
99 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The film "announces itself as Civil War history told not by or for the benefit of whites".[3] However, the lead producer and writer, Mark Amin, is white; the co-writer, Pat Charles, is African American, as is the second producer Reginald Hudlin.

Plot

In 1859, after the plantation on which Shields "Emperor" Green works in Charleston, South Carolina, is gambled away by his master, a cruel new overseer tortures Shields and whips his son Tommy, whereupon Shields kills the overseer and flees. Shields' wife Sarah is killed during his escape.

With help, Shields evades capture on his way north. His master and neighboring plantation owners hire bounty hunter Luke McCabe to catch him. Shields meets up with a young bank robber, Rufus Little. McCabe and his men almost catch them but fail; they do, however, kill Little, whose bank loot and gun Shields takes. He gives the money to a white man, Levi Coffin (a real Quaker abolitionist), who works for the Underground Railroad, and asks him to buy his son's freedom. In Maryland, Shields meets John Brown, who is preparing the raid, and Frederick Douglass, who tells him that they will die.

Shields joins Brown and his men, who take over Harper's Ferry; Robert E. Lee and his forces retake it. As Shields rides away on a horse, McCabe shoots and wounds him. Shields takes refuge at a church, but McCabe and his men track him down. During a gun battle. Shields climbs to the spire, pursued by McCabe, and blows it up as he leaps into a river to make his escape. Coffin buys Tommy's freedom and takes him to Shields. In 1890, his son writes his a book about him and takes it to a publisher.

Cast

Reception

Emperor received mixed reviews.

As of October 2020, 77% of the thirteen reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes are positive, with an average rating of 6.13/10.[4]

Glenn Kenny of The New York Times gave a mixed review, praising the lead Okeniyi's acting while finding the plot to be "unimaginative" and the dialogue "tired".[3]

Martin Thomas of Double Toasted put the film as his #1 worst film of 2020, describing it as poorly written, historically inaccurate.[5]

On RogerEbert.com, Simon Abrams gave it one star, calling it toothless, insulting, inert, tacky, lousy, and mediocre. "It re-presents a dark period in American history without being inspired or insightful enough to be worth your curiosity or emotional investment."[1]

Historical accuracy

Green had broken speech and was hard to understand; he may have had a speech defect. Douglass described him as "a man of few words". Shields Green actually met both John Brown and Frederick Douglass' at the latter's home in Rochester, New York, where John was visiting and working on his project. We do not know what he was doing as a slave in South Carolina, but that he managed a plantation is very unlikely. In Rochester, living in Douglass' house, he worked as a barber and launderer. Green did not escape from the raid on Harper's Ferry. He was captured, tried, and convicted along with Brown for treason against Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave insurrection, and hanged two weeks after Brown. There is no evidence that Green saw his son again after he left South Carolina, nor that his son wrote a book about him. While the fact that he had a son is documented, that he had "sons" is not. The names of his wife and son are unknown. See Shields Green.

Shields Green and the Gospel of John Brown

Shields Green and the Gospel of John Brown is a screenplay by Kevin Willmott and Mitch Brian, which "tells the story of Green, an ex-slave and disciple of Frederick Douglass[,] who accompanied Brown to Harper's Ferry, where he died." In Shields Green, "there's a reluctant leader/hero. It's like The 70's in the sense that there's a kid—Shields Green, in this case—who is running from reality, and he ends up embracing the reality of race and assuming the mantle of leadership. I mean, at first Green only wants to get his family free from slavery, but then he grows into a person who believes that all slaves need to be free."

It was purchased by Chris Columbus for 20th-Century Fox, but was not produced.[6] The rights have reverted to the authors.

References
  1. Abrams, Simon (August 18, 2020). "Emperor". RogerEbert.con.
  2. Debruge, Peter (August 15, 2020). "'Emperor' Review: A Runaway Slave Joins the Raid on Harpers Ferry in Forgotten Tale of Black Heroism". Variety.
  3. Kenny, Glenn (August 18, 2020). "'Emperor' Review: A Once-Enslaved Man Has a Date With Destiny". The New York Times.
  4. "Emperor (2020)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2mXXB751nI
  6. Loeb, Jeff; Willmotty, Kevin (Summer 2001). "A Conversation with Kevin Willmott". African American Review. 35 (2): 249–262. JSTOR 2903256.
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