The Despair of Hagiography

I just finished watching The Powerbroker, a biography of the Urban League President and civil rights activist. Whitney Young.  But the whole enterprise left me only sighing.

The Powerbroker trailer

As you can see from the trailer above, this is a film with a strong and simple  message-- Whitney Young was a genius and a prophet , part of  a triumvirate of  leaders -- Thurgood Marshall ,Martin Luther Kind and Young-- that together led the civil rights movement.

The film works very hard to portray Young as a misunderstood hero.  While the film may be right about Young's reputation, what I was missing in tn this film , as in all first-rate biographies, was a sense of the man himself -- his inner life, his deepest emtions, his mistakes as well as his triumphs, his personal life, and his inner demons.

I don't know enough about Young's story to argue with the content of this film, but I do know from my work on many biographical films, that all accomplished  men and women will seem more heroic if you delve into  their inner struggles and their weaknesses, portraying what what they triumphed over in their own lives to achieve what they did .  There is precious little of that in this film.

I do really do understand the need to make the first film about important leaders simple heroic tales, but I keep waiting for  the next effort that will be  deeper and more realistic. Whitney Young , who to all appearances was a man who prided himself in his realism,  deserved  a better film.

That said, the film is well made, and you'll  learn the basics of Young's  biography, but the film's  approach to the story filled me with the sighs of despair.

Watch the Powerbroker