Cry Freedom is a 1987 feature film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. The film was shot in neighbouring Zimbabwe, and, although not banned in South Africa, cinemas showing the films were faced with bomb threats. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film was seized by authorities on July 29, 1988. In some cases, there were reports that prints of the films were wrenched off the cinema projectors and the film remained unseen in South Africa until 1991.

Summary

Cry Freedom is based on the true story of Steve Biko (Denzel Washington), the charismatic South African Black Consciousness Movement leader, and Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), the liberal white editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper. After Biko was arrested and killed while in police custody, Woods wrote a book entitled Biko exposing police complicity in his death. For him to get the book published, he had to escape from South Africa. This book, along with Woods's autobiography "Asking For Trouble," became the basis for this film.

When Biko first appears in the film, he has already been "banned" by the South African government. "Banning" meant he was not allowed to be in the same room with more than one other person outside his immediate family, and not allowed to write anything for either public or private consumption. Additionally, he was not allowed to leave his defined banning area. Initially, Woods is critical of Biko's views and actions in his newspaper but is persuaded to meet with him. Biko invites Woods to visit a black township to see the impoverished conditions and to witness the effect of the government imposed restrictions which make up the apartheid system. Woods begins to agree with Biko's desire for a South Africa where blacks have the same opportunities and freedoms as those enjoyed by the white population. As Woods comes to understand Biko's point of view, a friendship develops between them.

Following Biko's arrest and death while in custody, Woods works to expose police complicity in his death. He meets with Jimmy Kruger, the South African Minister of Justice, but his efforts to expose the truth lead to his own banning, and Woods and his family are targeted in a campaign of dirty tricks by the security police. After one trick involving a corrosive chemical in some shirts eventually goes too far, Woods decides to sneak off to England. After a long hike, Woods is eventually able to escape to Lesotho, disguised as a priest. From there he is flown to Botswana with the help of Bruce Haigh, a controversial Australian diplomat who used his diplomatic immunity to help him.

The film ends with a long list of anti-apartheid activists who died while in police custody, together with the causes of death given by the police at the time. These include one who supposedly died of "self-strangulation," two who were said to have fallen down stairs, and many who were claimed as "suicidal hangings."

Cast

• Steve Biko - Denzel Washington
• Donald Woods - Kevin Kline
• Wendy Woods - Penelope Wilton
• Jimmy Kruger - John Thaw
• Charles Jenkins - Robert Jones
• Bruce Haigh - John Hargreaves
• State Prosecutor - Ian Richardson
• Mamphela Ramphele - Josette Simon
• Ntsiki Biko - Juanita Waterman

Criticism

The film was criticized for focusing more on (white) newspaper editor Woods, on whose written accounts of Biko the film was based, than on Biko himself, whose life is told in the movie mostly through his interactions with Woods. On the other hand, Steve Biko's portrayal was sufficiently lengthy to earn actor Denzel Washington his first Oscar nomination (as a supporting actor) for playing that role.

Woods changed from a liberal newspaper editor with only a moderate concern for apartheid, to an internationally known figure who bravely endangered his and his family's safety to expose the injustices he discovered. Both Biko and Woods have been credited with helping to bring apartheid to an end, and it has also been argued that the complexities of Woods' ideological metamorphosis required more film time to reveal. It is not uncommon for political films to use characters that will lead the audience along the path toward understanding the filmmaker's point of view, particularly if the issue is controversial or not widely understood. In this case, an epic, English-language film aimed at a primarily Western audience, Kevin Kline's portrayal of Woods as a man who comes to see his complicity in the apartheid system may have been intended to induce the same realization in mainstream white viewers, as opposed to a film primarily about the life of Steve Biko, which in 1988 might have been seen to have a different audience or effect. But the choice of focussing on a white protagonist may also improve box office success: notably, Richard Attenborough's 1982 film about Gandhi uses the same technique, showing us Gandhi through the eyes of white protagonist Vince Walker, even though Gandhi's cause was widely recognised by mainstream audiences.

References

The Dave Matthews Band song "Cry Freedom," inspired by Biko's struggle for South Africa, takes its title from the movie.

See also

• Biko by Donald Woods

External links

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