Rustin

dir: George C Wolfe

2023

I’m all for biopics about relatively obscure but important figures in history. When they’re really obscure then we don’t have a pre-conceived idea of what they should be like.

I guess that’s the main difference between doing a biopic about Bob Marley, as in the recent flick One Love, which seems to be universally hated by film critics, versus something like this flick, being Rustin, which has, at best, been tepidly received, is familiarity.

I go in with no preconceptions, having never heard of the man outside of the context of this flick and the Oscar nomination for the chap who plays the main character. Colman Domingo plays Bayard Rustin like he’s got nothing to lose and like he doesn’t care if we like him or the character or not.

And that’s a good thing. At the start we see that Mr Rustin is close to the prominent people in the civil rights movement, including a certain Reverend, but that for some of the old guard, the power players, like the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock) or Congressman Powell (Jeffrey Wright), don’t like him at all.

And why is that? Is it because he isn’t performing in his job? Is it because he’s not passionate about fighting for the betterment of society through improving the lot of African-Americans? Is it the hairstyle?

Nah. It’s because he’s gay.

Nothing any white characters, racist or otherwise, say in this flick is as nasty as the stuff Wilkins or Powell say about Rustin both to his face or behind his back. They claim is that their concerns are that people will find it easier to criticize the activities of these civil rights activists if they can pick apart the histories and proclivities of various prominent members. And that would hamper the ambitions and aspirations of someone, like, say, the very Reverend Martin Luther King Jr (Aml Ameen).

But Rustin and King are such firm friends. Both King and his wife Coretta (Carra Patterson) love having Rustin over, to play with the kids, have dinner and, I dunno, do the hokey pokey.

Yet when the question is put to King, he throws Rustin under the bus.

Three long years later…

Bayard Rustin is a complex character (we are told). He was brought up a Quaker, and as such lives and breathes both the concept of bearing witness against injustice and non-violent disobedience, though on that score he seems more moved by Mahatma Gandhi than he is by Quakerism. At least in the context of this movie he makes multiple references to the Salt Marches in the 1930s, and uses it for shorthand to point to how civil disobedience can bring down an empire.

He plans for something similar in the US, to fight the good fight (non-violently) in order to convince the federal government to pass legislation that ends discrimination against African Americans under the law (through what would be the Civil Rights Act and eventually the Voting Rights Act). But it follows on from the work of many unionists, volunteers and organisers who strove to shame middle America into doing something politically because of the footage of non-violent African American protesters and marchers having attack dogs, firehoses and billy clubs let loose upon them, on the nightly news.

This film acts like the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs in 1963 was a Very Important Thing that happened, one that set the stage for more changes that were to come (and plenty more deaths). It was the largest protest march up to that time in the States. It’s where MLK gave his famous “Free at Last” speech, and, the major upshot we are told, is that several months later the Civil Rights Act would be passed.

Problem solved. Well, maybe not quite. When you hear about such events, you might wonder about the logistics of how it came to past, what might have been involved, who did what, who tried to stop it, what their reasons might have been.

You might also wonder about who the people involved were, what they were like, what motivated them, who they were having sex with, what other issues they might have been wrestling with. I mean, that stuff is just general drama, the messy stuff of life, and we expect it in any story. We get some inkling maybe of who Bayard Rustin was, his flashes of witty brilliance, the trauma he carried from being brutalised mostly by cops, including the ones that knocked some of his teeth out.

And we get some sense of Rustin as a man who may have, at times, been ashamed of his sexuality, but who at other times understood that his fight for freedom and equality under the law was as relevant to him and people like him as it was to any person, whether they were gay, African American, or not.

He even has to make the argument to Martin that as a gay man his voice, his force of will to get something done, to make some change in the American body politic, is no less valid and no less important just because he’s gay. Eventually, Martin nods his head to indicate “you know what, you might have a point there.”

He is somewhat of a strange figure, and I mean that as a compliment. He weighs up the pros of being out and proud with the fear gay men of the era, and many other eras, probably felt being at the mercy of other men, the cops or the FBI. Activists had been ruined for less, with less.

He happily has a relationship with someone who clearly idolises him, being Tom Kahn (Gus Halper), who’s also a prominent activist for the cause, despite (or because of) being white. But when you’ve got a (young) guy with stars in his eyes at your beck and call, well, of course you’re going to take him for granted.

As such Bayard seems far more focused on another good Baptist reverend, being Elias Taylor (John Ramey), who happens to be married, who happens to also be confused about how much of himself he can be, out and free, at that time.

In public. In 1963.

Forgive me, it’s just that there are moments that ring true, and moments that do not, and the scenes with the good pastor never really ring true. I mean, don’t get me wrong I’m sure they’re hot as anything, but I just can’t see that Bayard in all conscience would be telling Elias to live his truth out and proud (with contemporary sounding ideas) at the same time as they’re dreading discovery by the cops or the papers, and he’s warning him not to go to notorious beats (for hot, anonymous sex).

And when I found that the Elias character is a complete construct, as in, isn’t based on an actual person in Rustin’s circle of acquaintance, well, I can’t say I was that surprised.

There’s also another part that doesn’t ring completely true, despite being from his actual biography. There are references made to something that happened in Pasadena back in the 50s. His opponents, both within the NAACP and within the bastions of white supremacy (ie the FBI and the Senate) keep teasing us with what happened, and Rustin seems to dread all the people working with him to organise the march on Washington, as to what they would do if they found out his dreaded secret.

When it finally happens, Rustin runs screaming out of the building, and when he gets back, everyone’s just getting on with business, organising the march, not caring that Rustin was arrested for having sex with two guys in a car.

Half yer luck, mate. Was it in the back of a Volkswagen?

It’s built up and forgotten so quickly maybe the point was that no one was going to care, so he shouldn’t have either.

So what does it take to organise the biggest march on Washington? It takes the collective effort of a lot of people brave enough to tell their story and their task to the world in order to inspire people to be their better selves (and hand over donations), and also a bunch of people happy to do the scut work: Who’s ordering the portable toilets, who’s hiring the sound system, who’s going to unfold the folding chairs, who’s going to order the buses to ferry people from train station or airport to the National Mall.

It sounds mundane to relate it, and even more so to make a film out of it, but if the film has a point, it’s that for every Martin Luther King Jr speech that captured the hearts and minds of a generation, there were a thousand people behind the scenes making it all happen, and that’s not a bad point. It undercuts the idea that even justifies something like a biopic being made: history or change isn’t down just to One Great Man doing something at the right time at the right place. It’s usually about some other great guy behind the scenes, and the whole swathe of other people that supported them in their endeavors.

I like that kind of thinking. I enjoyed my time with the decidedly odd Bayard Rustin. I loved the music, the aesthetics, the feel they generated for that time, that place. I loved the central performance, which is a big performance. Colman Domingo is such a chameleonic actor; he is very different in every I’ve seen him in, from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to Euphoria, to Zola, where he played a most vicious pimp. That this is his first starring role in something is a credit to his dedication to his craft.

7 times I wish they’d said more about what he did after the March in 1963, since he did outlive almost every other character from this era of the civil rights movement out of 10

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“On the day that I was born black, I was also born a homosexual. They either believe in freedom and justice for all, or they do not.” - Rustin