The Irish actress Ruth
Neggar has rightly attracted a lot of praise – and an Oscar nomination- for her
role in Jeff Nichols’ film ‘Loving’. I think this is a fine
film, telling the true story of Richard Loving – a white man – and a Mildred –
a black woman- who married in the late 1950’s in the State of
Virginia – breaking that State’s ‘miscegenation’ law forbidding inter-racial
marriage.
Richard and Mildred were
ordered to leave the State under pain of imprisonment. Their case
was taken up by the American Civil Rights Union and after nine years, in 1967,
the USA’s Supreme Court affirmed their right to marry. This was a
landmark decision that has since then positively affected many
Americans. It was also an important victory in the whole Civil
Rights history.
But I want to draw attention
to Joel Edgerton, the Australian actor who played
Richard. Edgerton was a convincing US SEAL in Zero Dark Thirty, and produced a nuanced portrait of Tom Buchanan
in Baz Lurmann’s Great Gatsby.
I think that film was
vastly superior in just about every way to Jack Clayton’s 1974 version, which
had Robert Redford as Gatsby, Mia Farrow as Daisy and Bruce Dern, as Buchanan –
who was a simply rich oaf. We had no idea why Daisy would have
married him – apart from his ‘old’ money. With Edgerton we could see
that Daisy could indeed love him, and that he loved Daisy – even as he was
unfaithful. He gave us the swagger and arrogance, but we also saw
his insecurity, loneliness and fear. Gatsby’s fortune might
have been nefarious but he had made it himself, whereas Buchanan’s had been
inherited. And he was physically afraid of Gatsby. So
much of this happened behind his eyes where all the best film acting is done.
Tom Buchanan and Richard
Loving could hardly be more different. Here we see a working man, a
builder and car mechanic, a modest man of few words. He knows fear, but
quietly does what needs to be done out of love for his wife. Edgerton
inhabits this man, with his slow physicality, his gentle voice, his watchful
wary eyes. Richard is not a campaigner. He simply wants to do what
his wife wants – to live alongside her family back in Virginia. It is an
ambitious lawyer who takes up their case, and put’s the couple at risk by doing
so.
Edgerton’s performance
mirrors the qualities of the movie. Understated, honest, careful, loving.
I applaud them.
