(TIME’s Dan D’Addario found that the remake was “alternately–or simultaneously–jarring and beautiful to look at. And the artistic merits of the plot didn’t end up mattering so much, in any case. Chained with other captives, Kunta begins an agonized odyssey to the New World. But he does not enjoy his new status long: slave traders sweeping the countryside seize him. Nearly 40 years later, some of Schickel’s complaints seem dated: the idea that a slavery story cannot be good without clearly showing that good white people exist is, though still common, harder to defend. In Gambia, West Africa, Kunta Kinte, son of Omoro and Binta, distinguishes himself in manhood training rituals. This is dramatically vulgar and historically preposterous. Not a single black man of less than shining rectitude turns up either. The celebrated miniseries that followed a year later was a coast-to-coast event-over 130 million Americans watched some or all of the broadcast.
In the one-third of their work available in advance to critics, not one sympathetic white character appears.
It appears, however, that in their fervor not to be misunderstood, to be clearly on the side of the angels, they have set aside all common sense. It was brave of them to try to do so in the unlikely precincts of prime-time commercial television. Naturally, a Simon Legree figure is always handy to do their dirty work, while highborn white ladies dither prettily in the background…ĭoubtlessly, all concerned with this enormous, expensively cast and heavily flacked “prestige” production were earnestly anxious to make a vivid, powerful statement about this central American historical drama. As always, slave-ship captains and plantation owners are shown as psychopathic hypocrites-consulting Scripture in one scene, condoning, even participating in violence and rape in the next. In his view of Roots, the result was a bad one:Īs always, the native tongue of the persecuted minority is rendered in English as fake-childish poetry. April 15, 11:00 am 13 Best-Ever TV Period Dramas, Ranked February 28, 10:55 am 9 Most-Watched TV Events Ever, Including the ‘M*A*S*H’ Finale, Now 40 Years Old February 18, 1:35 pm Gerald Fried Dies: Emmy-Winning TV Composer of ‘Roots,’ ‘Star Trek’ Was 95 OctoHow Well Do You Know Classic Miniseries of the ’70s & ’80s? (QUIZ) OctoAustin Stoker, ‘Assault On Precinct 13’ & ‘Roots’ Actor, Dies at 92 J10 American History Dramas to Watch Before the Fourth of July (VIDEO) Ma‘Star Trek’ and ‘Roots’ Director Marvin J.The problem, he posited, was that slavery was “a crime so monstrous that, like the Holocaust, it is beyond anyone’s ability to re-create in intelligent dramatic terms.” In other words, trying to talk about the issue of the African-American historical experience and make high-quality narrative art at the same time was difficult, if not impossible.
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