“Till” (2022) starts in Chicago, with Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) preparing her son, Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall), for a vacation to visit his cousins for a couple of weeks in Money, Mississippi, but she cannot shake her misgivings about the trip. Emmett is excited for the trip and acts like any kid oblivious to the dangers around him until it is too late. Mamie jumps into action looking for her son, trying to retrieve his body from authorities then doing everything that she can to make the government hold the murderers accountable, but when she is alone, she is just left to wrestle with her grief and her last memory of her son. As early as 2015, Whoopi Goldberg, who plays Emmett’s grandmother, announced plans to adapt Till-Mobley’s books, a memoir called “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America” and a play, “The Face of Emmett Till,” but it is unclear to me how much these books were used in the film. Keith Beauchamp, a cowriter with the director, Chinonye Chukwu, knew Till-Mobley and made documentaries on this subject. He also work with the FBI, the DOJ and Mississippi officials to try and get justice for Emmett.
I almost did not see “Till” in theaters because I am black and occasionally like to not be depressed. I knew about Emmett’s story since I was a child, but my Emmett Till was Trayvon Martin, and I am never getting over it. After seeing “Armageddon Time” (2022) in which a black boy is never treated like a human being except by his best friend, who unintentionally gets him into more trouble, I decided that I could make it through the entire film. I also prioritize films with black women directors, and I loved director Chukwu’s sophomore film, “Clemency” (2019) so if it was not for the subject matter, I would have seen this film during opening weekend. Instead I waited until the last day it was playing, a little over three weeks.
Chukwu was vocal about her refusal to depict on screen violence against black people, which she managed to do, but we still get the events preceding, the sounds during and the physical fallout after Emmett’s murder so the film can be traumatizing. The marketing for “Till” frames it as the vegetable of films—the viewer should see it to educate themselves about history, which is valid and true, but not necessarily a draw, especially if you are a viewer already familiar with this moment in history.
Why should anyone watch “Till” other than it is good for you? Deadwyler’s performance, the lived-in feel of the period piece to make it feel immersive and contemporary, not ancient and removed, and the music as a horror element. I am unfamiliar with Deadwyler’s work, but she may have given the best acting performance of the year. She is stunning and restrained so when she breaks, she infuses each moment of sorrow with nuance and uniqueness. Deadwyler’s portrait feels as if she is a mother who becomes a leader in the Civil Rights movement and creates the media playbook of how to make people unable to ignore her pain. During the funeral, a relative says, “I can’t look, Mamie.” “We have to.” So Deadwyler and Chukwu treat Mamie as the unofficial director for American popular consciousness and consider her image and her son’s. There is a dual consciousness as a human being and a storyteller.
Chukwu makes Mamie and Emmett look prosperous—think of the descriptions in The Great Gatsby, extrapolate them then apply it to Chicago and the Mississippi countryside. The early scenes between mother and child are infused with joy. This depiction is straight out of the classic Civil Rights respectability playbook, but taken to another level. We go to the movies to see stars, and Mamie and Emmett glitter. Fifties nostalgia makes aesthetic sense despite the horror. Even Mississippi scenes of casual camaraderie among the black majority in certain areas show, do not tell, why black people would risk returning to killing grounds. Mound Bayou, the independent black community, shows black people swimming in sparkling blue pools. They look like stars in every scene, which will make viewers subconsciously more outraged when someone does not treat them with dignity.
The color gold is a sign of prosperity, but it is also the color of the curtain in a train car that divides black from white people when the train crosses over into the south and Jim Crow comes into effect. Chukwu refuses to show what life is like behind that curtain just as she refuses to show violence. Yellow is a symbol of joy, but here it is also the moment before death. So while yellow is the focus, it does become a harbinger of life before loss. There is a sign at the Money town border that reads, “A good place to raise a boy.” All that cheeriness evoked the sinister world behind it like “Smile” (2022).
“Till” stood out from other civil rights movies with its use of music. Early in the film, mother and son sing together then the upbeat music becomes dissonant and screeches. This shift in tone continues to happen until the worst happens. It feels very “Midsommar” (2019). The closest that the film comes to revisiting this theme is the unofficial theme song for Emmett, Dizzy Gillespie’s “He Beeped When He Should Have Bopped.” It is the last song that Emmett sings at home, and whenever Mamie is alone, she plays it. Its cheeriness stands in stark contrast to its initial appearance, and it is a testament to how Mamie must resist becoming like Miss Havisham, alone and vengeful.
Otherwise “Till” does feel like other classic civil rights movies as black people are expected to remain dignified and peaceful in the face of hate. Chukwu punctuates these expected moments of reassurance, gospel music and expressions of pain with bursts of anger. Two standouts are when Mamie confronts her uncle for not physically confronting the murderers and when Dr. T.R.M. Howard (icon Roger Guenveur Smith), Mamie’s benefactor at Mound Bayou and a historical figure who conscientiously broke the law when abortion was illegal, begins to lose his equanimity. I wish that there were more moments like this. Men dominate most civil rights movies, and while Mamie is the protagonist, a lot of the movie focuses on men trying to convince Mamie to do more, which I suspect strays from the truth since women were often at the forefront of these movements, but did not get as much attention. I did not buy that Mamie was a simple woman who did not think about larger issues until her son’s murder, and the movie chose to take that stance to make her more relatable to viewers so they could consider acting. On the other hand, I do not know much about her as a person so maybe it is accurate. The most shocking moment of the film was to see black men participate in the lynching.
If you think “Till” does not need to be made because there are enough films about black pain, the film functions as a cry for justice which has never been served to date. Mamie says, “My child is dead, and she (Carolyn Bryant Donham) is going to be fine.” Mamie was right. Mamie and Emmett are dead, and that chick is still in the comfort of her home and with the devotion of her family. “Will Mississippi ignore Emmett Till’s murder?” was Jet’s headline when the magazine published photos of Emmett Till’s body. The answer to Jet’s question is yes. As late as August 2022, a Mississippi grand jury refused to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham for kidnapping and murdering, but it was not the first time that the system refused to hold Bryant Donham accountable. A warrant for her arrest dated August 29, 1955 was never executed because she allegedly could not be located. Author Timothy Tyson had no problem finding her so he could interview her for his book, “The Blood of Emmett Till” where she admitted to lying. Do not tell the Daily Mail that she cannot be located. Their photographers snapped photos of her published on August 1, 2022, and the newspaper equated her with “a Nazi war criminal.” The main difference between elderly men who were Nazis and elderly women who get kids killed in the US, the men get in trouble. Maybe Mississippi should fire their law enforcement and hire writers and journalists to find their criminals. This movie continues Mamie’s demand for justice and will condemns Bryant Donham for as long as it exists.
If “Till” succeeded at doing anything, I am now willing to consider seeing the television anthology series “Women of the Movement,” which is also about Mamie. It has seven episodes with notable black women directors at the helm such as The Woman King’s Gina Prince-Bythewood, Daughters of the Dust’s Julie Dash and Harriet’s Kasi Lemmons and Tina Mabry, whose work I am unfamiliar with at this point.
