‘Blood’ To Be Filmed In N.C.
The N&O has a story today (on page 4B) revealing that the movie version of the novel Blood Done Sign My Name will be filmed in North Carolina. The story is based on the Timothy Tyson novel involving memoirs of a 1970 racial killing in Oxford. The mayor of Oxford, Al Woodlief, said that his community welcomes the film crew, and delights at the opportunity to teach a history lesson. “And besides, maybe I’ll get to hang out with Gwyneth Paltrow.” (correction: this comment was made by the book’s author)
Oh boy. Another opportunity for Hollywood to portray the South as a bunch of racist hicks. To be sure, the storytellers in this movie will have no intention of highlighting the mayor’s point that “Oxford has changed very much in 30 years.” Instead they will blur fiction, stereotypes, and history with the present. Complete with bad southern accents, the movie will deliver a hit piece that will do irreparable damage to the reputation of Oxford. Poised to thrive from the fruits of being an outlying Raleigh community, the town, instead, will languish as transplants avoid the town stereotyped by Hollywood (all because of the actions of a few). Thanks a lot, Mayor Woodlief.
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February 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Kinda jumping to conclusions there I think?
It’s supposed to be based on actual things that happened…..38 years ago in fact. (Before many of the recent transplants to this area were even born.)
Yes there’s a chance it could be done poorly and exaggerate southern stereotypes, but there’s an equal chance that it won’t.
I’m not familiar with the novel, but if the movie is historically accurate then I have no problem with it. I don’t think we southerners should try to sugarcoat our history to make it more palatable to newcomers. Instead we should own up to it honestly.
Now, if it turns out that the movie isn’t done in a historically accurate way, then we all will have just cause to bash it. But if it’s not even made yet, we can’t come to that conclusion.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Why don’t we make a list the movies about historical racism in the South that are not overly stereotypical, then make a list of movies that are? Then ask, if you were mayor, would you want to take the risk of putting ALL of your town’s reputation in the hands of Hollywood.
There is a delicate balance here. We surely want to acknowledge and learn from history, but we also want to move on and treat things in a contextual manner in the present. Oxford is a town that has moved on well past the events, and dragging everyone through it again won’t do much for the town’s morale.
The mayor MUST DEMAND that the movie spend ample time portraying race relations as they are today in Oxford. Show black and white people getting along at school, holding doors open for each other in shops, and (gasp!) socializing together with mutual respect. This is far more important than the mayor’s possibility of “hanging out with Gwyneth”.
February 14th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
But, Dana, I must disagree. This is a great book about history, one written by a North Carolina writer. This is a movie about the book, not North Carolina today. So, you are saying that every historical book should include an update about how the issue is handled today? That is silly.
And I think the Mayor of Oxford is just thrilled to have all that money coming to his city from the film people.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Let the author weigh in here. First, Mayor Woodlief was not the one who made the joke about getting to hang out with Gwyneth Paltrow. That was me. The mayor cannot hope to control the narrative in someone else’s movie; the film will be made, and it will have its say, and that will be true if they make it in eastern Europe like they did COLD MOUNTAIN. If we make the film in Oxford, it will be more authentic and we will inject a lot of money into the local economy, something mayors tend to seek. It will also be an opportunity for Oxford to show the world what it has already shown itself: that it can face even the hard parts of its own past and move forward together as a community.
It is important to note that the book is not actually a novel, but a history told in memoir form. Check the Essay on Sources at the back. This is not fiction. You can look it all up. BLOOD does not portray Oxford in a negative light, but instead reports what happened in Oxford in the summer of 1970, using that to launch a larger and (to my mind) much needed discussion about race in America.
The story of race in America does not stay the same, but is ever changing, and it’s time we took it in the direction of honesty and healing, mending and understanding. The remarkable thing about Oxford is not the violence in 1970; I could have written BLOOD about hundreds of communities in the country at that time. The extraordinary thing is how Oxford has responded to its painful past: I have been invited to speak at city hall and in the local schools, the book is taught at the high school every year, and people who certainly don’t agree on everything in the book or in their own lives still are accepting what happened and moving toward a stronger community. That’s amazing.
February 15th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Tim, thanks for replying. My question is: Will the movie portray 1970 or present day ?
February 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Like most all other books that are made into movies, I would assume that this movie would follow the book. As Tim says, this book tells the story of an actual event that occurred in Oxford in 1970….so I think it would be pretty safe to assume that the movie will be set in 1970.
It was a great book, Tim, thanks for telling that story.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Sorry to be so slow to respond to your question, Subway. I do not live in the blogosphere much and I’ve been busy as bees. But onward.
Yes, it will be about Oxford in 1970, not about Oxford in the present day. It’s a history. A contemporary story would be a different (though related) thing. Nobody will ever write or make or read or watch a story or film about what the Chamber of Commerce wants you to think about your hometown. It would not matter and it would bore everyone to death, too.
In the years since the book was published, I have spoken at City Hall in Oxford, at several local churches, at the high school and the middle school, and donated hundreds of copies of BLOOD to local students. A local book person tell me that the book has divided white people in Oxford into two camps–those who are mad about the book and those who have read the book. She says there is no overlap, though I doubt that is entirely true.
I have shared the concerns expressed here that the film would present Southern and African American stereotypes; as you know, the South in as much a region of the imagination as the United States, a screen onto which Americans project their fears, fantasies, sins and longings. Like black Americans, the South is used as a kind of symbolic American language. (And when we think “the South,” we have to remember that black Americans are mostly Southerners, too.) Think of all the “plantation” movies, novels, songs, and art–the South is among the most American of topics, but songs about Dixie are likely to be written on Tin Pan Alley and movies about the region say more about America’s psychological needs than the South’s actual history.
But now I have seen the screenplay, and I think it’s quite good. Not a racial or regional cliche, nothing that makes me feel uneasy. It’s not my book, instead it’s Jeb Stuart’s movie, but so far I am pleased. There is still time for casting or acting or editing or all sorts of things to mess it up, but so far, so good. I am hopeful and pleased.
We start filming on May 5. I am sure that I won’t be able to control or predict everything that happens, but I hope to learn a lot and have a good time. Millions of people see even an unsuccessful movie, while we can’t expect the book to do remotely that well. So it’s important and worth doing, if history matters, and if it can be done right. We shall see. Thus far, I don’t feel compromised, but instead encouraged. Again, I know I am in over my head, and for me there is much at stake. There is no reason, except for the entire history of the film industry, of course, to worry about how it will portray this history. But someone has to get try and get it right, and it’s more fun than grumbling.
The first comment–that the movie would be a “hit job” that tells lies in “bad Southern accents,” among all those other things–is clearly just a shovelful of attitude. History matters, and it isn’t a Chamber of Commerce brochure. The book isn’t perfect, and the movie won’t be either, but happy-talk history gets us nowhere. Ignorance is not bliss, actually, but instead it’s just ignorance. Telling yourself you’ve always been a shining example is not the way to live better. Mama or the therapist would tell you the same thing–at some point, we have to deal with who we have actually been in order to become who we want to be.
Tim
August 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Interesting story that anyone can search the records on.What is shame is the author sources don’t match his story.Everyone needs to check the credibility of this author.Excellent source: http://www.timothybtyson.com