Will Smith’s first major project since last year’s Oscars is going to be released next week, but, the actor says, he understands that audience members may want to give the film a miss.
In a TV interview with Fox 5, Smith said: “I completely understand that, if someone is not ready... I would absolutely respect that and allow them their space to not be ready.”
However, he added: “My deepest concern is my team. Antoine [Fuqua, the film’s director] has done what I think is the greatest work in his entire career … the people on this team have done some of the best work of their entire careers, and my deepest hope is that my actions don’t penalise my team.”
Plot
The new film, Emancipation, is based on the true story of Gordon, a man who escaped enslavement in Louisiana and who then became the subject of a series of photos that were published as part of an 1863 Harper’s Weekly article, titled ‘A Typical Negro’. Gordon had severe keloid scarring on his back from being whipped. In one picture, his back, revealing his scars, is turned to the camera - it’s a truly devastating image.
The photo, which became known as the “scourged back” picture, became integral to the work of the abolitionist movement as it was widely circulated as proof of the brutality meted out to slaves. The New York Times writer Joan Paulson Gage in 2013, described it as one “of the earliest and most dramatic examples of how the newborn medium of photography could change the course of history.”
Gordon - named Peter in the forthcoming film - escaped the plantation of John and Bridget Lyons in March 1863, and joined the Union Army, which was stationed in Louisiana’s capital, Baton Rouge.
Emancipation has been directed by Antoine Fuqua, who was a producer on 2022’s Bullet Train and has directed numerous other films including Olympus Has Fallen (2013), The Equalizer (2014) and The Guilty (2021). Ben Foster (Hell or High Water), Charmaine Bingwa (Black Box), Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead) and Mustafa Shakir (Cowboy Bebop) also star alongside Smith.
Trailer
Released two weeks ago, the trailer, entirely in black and white, has already garnered over two million views: viewers see Peter as he works on the plantation and attempts to escape. The grey tones help the eye to focus on the textures, such as the dirt on Peter’s face, the tears in his clothes and the dust lifted by the bloodhounds who chase him.
Oscar fallout
It’s unlikely that anyone will have forgotten Smith’s now-infamous Oscar slap. In March, the actor won Best Actor for playing the father of tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard. But the win – and in fact, the entire ceremony - was completely overshadowed by Smith’s actions: he stormed onto the stage and slapped host Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss. Smith was subsequently banned from Academy functions for ten years, and he resigned from the Academy.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in November, Fuqua said that there weren’t discussions about the film not coming out: “My conversation was always, ‘Isn’t 400 years of slavery, of brutality, more important than one bad moment?’... We were in Hollywood, and there’s been some really ugly things that have taken place, and we’ve seen a lot of people get awards that have done some really nasty things.
“So I think Apple considered all those things and we discussed a lot of those things. Then a decision was made by the people in charge of distribution and the money at Apple – and I’m grateful.”
Speaking on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Smith previously explained: “I was going through something that night, you know?... Not that that justifies my behaviour at all... I just - I lost it.”
