13th (film)

13th is a 2016 American documentary film by director Ava DuVernay. The film explores the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;"[3] it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.

13th
Digital release poster
Directed byAva DuVernay
Produced by
Written by
  • Ava DuVernay
  • Spencer Averick
Music byJason Moran
Cinematography
Edited bySpencer Averick
Production
company
Kandoo Films
Distributed byNetflix
Release date
  • September 30, 2016 (2016-09-30) (NYFF)
  • October 7, 2016 (2016-10-07) (United States)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million[1]
Box office$566 (UK only)[2]
Part of a series on
Slavery

DuVernay contends that slavery has been perpetuated since the end of the American Civil War through criminalizing behavior and enabling police to arrest poor freedmen and force them to work for the state under convict leasing; suppression of African Americans by disenfranchisement, lynchings, and Jim Crow; politicians declaring a war on drugs that weighs more heavily on minority communities and, by the late 20th century, mass incarceration of people of color in the United States. She examines the prison-industrial complex and the emerging detention-industrial complex, discussing how much money is being made by corporations from such incarcerations.

13th garnered acclaim from a number of film critics. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.[4]

Synopsis

The film begins with an audio clip of President Barack Obama stating that the US had 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of the world's prisoners. This film features several activists, academics, political figures from both major US political parties, and public figures, such as Angela Davis, Bryan Stevenson, Van Jones, Newt Gingrich, Cory Booker, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and others.[5]

It explores the economic history of slavery and post-Civil War racist legislation and practices that replaced it. DuVernay contends as "systems of racial control" and forced labor from the years after the abolition of slavery to the present. Southern states criminalized minor offenses, arresting freedmen and forcing them to work when they could not pay fines; institutionalizing this approach as convict leasing (which created an incentive to criminalize more behavior). She contends they disenfranchised most blacks across the South at the turn of the 20th century, excluding them from the political system (including juries), at the same time that lynching of blacks by white mobs reached a peak. In addition, Jim Crow legislation was passed by Democrats, to legalize segregation and suppress minorities, forcing them into second-class status. Following the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s that restored civil rights, the film notes the Republican Party's appeal to southern white conservatives, including the claim to be the party to fight the war on crime and war on drugs, which began to include mandatory, lengthy sentencing. A new wave of minority suppression began, reaching African Americans and others in the northern, mid-western and western cities where many had migrated in earlier decades. After their presidential candidates lost to Republicans, Democratic politicians such as Bill Clinton joined the war on drugs.

Property crime rates in the United States per 100,000 population beginning in 1960. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

As a result, from the early 1970s to the present, the rate of incarceration and the number of people in prisons has climbed dramatically in the United States, while at the same time the rate of crime in the United States has continued to decline since the late 20th century. As late as the 2016 presidential election, the eventual winner Donald Trump worked to generate fear of crime, claiming high rates in New York City, for instance, which was not true according to the documentary. The documentary states that crime was lower overall than it had been in decades, but that Republican candidates raised it to generate fear. Private prison contractors entered the market to satisfy demand as arrests and sentences increased, forming an independent group with its own economic incentives to criminalize minor activities and lengthen sentences in order to keep prisons full. Politicians and businessmen in rural areas encouraged construction of prisons to supply local jobs, and they also allegedly have had incentives to keep prisons full.

US homicide convictions by race, 1980–2008[6]

The federal Bureau of Prisons announced in 2016 its intention to stop contracting with private providers for prison services. According to the film, the "over-incarceration" of adults has severely damaged generations of black and minority families and their children.

The film explores the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council, backed by corporations, that has provided Republican state and federal legislators with draft legislation to support the prison-industrial complex. It contends that only after some of the relationships were revealed did corporations like Walmart and others receive criticism and drop out of the organization.

The film explores the demonization of minority poor through these decades putatively to serve political ends, contributing to fears of minorities by whites and to problems of police brutality against minority communities. In the 21st century, the regularity of fatal police shootings of unarmed minorities in apparently minor confrontations has been demonstrated by videos taken by bystanders and by the increasing use of cameras in police cars or worn by officers; DuVernay ends the film with graphic videos of fatal shootings of blacks by police, what Manohla Dargis describes as, after the previous discussion, having the effect of "a piercing, keening cry."[3]

Production

The film was written by Ava DuVernay, who wrote and directed Selma (2014), and Spencer Averick. Averick also edited the film. Produced and filmed in secrecy, 13th was revealed only after it was announced as the opening film for the 2016 New York Film Festival, the first documentary ever to open the festival.[7][8]

Release

The film was released on October 7, 2016, on Netflix.[7] A companion piece 13th: A Conversation with Oprah Winfrey & Ava DuVernay was released on January 26, 2017, in the United States and on January 31, 2017, worldwide on the service.[9] On April 17, 2020, Netflix released the film for free on YouTube.[10]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 8.78/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "13th strikes at the heart of America's tangled racial history, offering observations as incendiary as they are calmly controlled."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 83 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[12]

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised what she called the power of DuVernay's film and its meticulous marshaling of facts. She said, summarizing the film, "The United States did not just criminalize a select group of black people. It criminalized black people as a whole, a process that, in addition to destroying untold lives, effectively transferred the guilt for slavery from the people who perpetuated it to the very people who suffered through it."[3] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film four stars and named it one of the best films of 2016.[13]

The film was nominated for dozens of awards, winning best documentary at the British Academy Film Awards and the Primetime Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award for excellence, and receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. DuVernay received a Primetime Emmy Award for her writing, and was nominated for directing. The song "Letter to the Free" was nominated for several awards with Common, Robert Glasper, and Karriem Riggins winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

Accolades
Award Category Recipients and nominees Outcome
Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick & Howard Barish Nominated
ACE Eddie Awards Best Edited Documentary Feature Spencer Averick Nominated
African-American Film Critics Association Awards Best Documentary 13th Won
Alliance of Women Film Journalists' EDA Awards Best Documentary 13th Won
Best Woman Director Ava DuVernay Won
Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry Ava DuVernay Won
Austin Film Critics Association Awards Best Documentary 13th Nominated
Black Reel Awards Best Film 13th Nominated
Best Feature Documentary 13th Won
Best Original or Adapted Song "Letter to the Free" – Common Nominated
British Academy Film Awards Best Documentary Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick & Howard Barish Won
Cinema Audio Society Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture – Documentary Jeffrey Perkins Nominated
Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Best Documentary Feature 13th Nominated
Best Documentary (TV/Streaming) 13th Won
Best Director (TV/Streaming) Ava DuVernay Won
Best Political Documentary 13th Won
Best Song in a Documentary "Letter to the Free" Nominated
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards Best Documentary 13th Runner-up
Detroit Film Critics Society Awards Best Documentary 13th Nominated
Hollywood Music in Media Awards Best Original Song – Documentary "Letter to the Free" Nominated
Houston Film Critics Society Awards Best Documentary Feature 13th Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards Best Documentary Feature 13th Nominated
MTV Movie & TV Awards Best Documentary 13th Won
NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Documentary (Film) 13th Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Non-Fiction Film 13th 3rd Place
New York Film Critics Online Awards Best Documentary 13th Won
Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Documentary Film 13th Nominated
Peabody Awards Excellence Forward Movement LLC and Kandoo Films Won
Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Best Documentary 13th Nominated
Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special 13th Won
Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming Ava DuVernay Nominated
Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming Ava DuVernay and Spencer Averick Won
Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program Hans Charles, Kira Kelly Nominated
Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics Common, Robert Glasper and Karriem Riggins for "Letter to the Free" Won
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program Spencer Averick Nominated
Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction Programming (Single or Multi-Camera) Tim Boggs, Alex Lee, Julie Pierce and Lise Richardson Nominated
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction Program (Single or Multi-Camera) Jeffrey Perkins Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Documentary Film 13th Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards Best Documentary Film 13th Nominated
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards Best Documentary 13th Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Best Documentary 13th Won
Women Film Critics Circle Awards Best Movie by a Woman 13th Won
Best Woman Storyteller (Screenwriting Award) Ava DuVernay Won
Best Documentary By or About Women 13th Won
Courage in Filmmaking Ava DuVernay Won
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gollark: Though this is perhaps more of an issue of programmers, languages and tooling more than hardware issues.
gollark: The thing is that the GPU isn't really integrated into normal compute use very much, even when it could probably be used effectively.
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See also

References
  1. "13th (2016)". The Wrap. Retrieved May 29, 2017.
  2. "13th". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  3. Manohla Dargis, "Review: ‘13TH,’ the Journey From Shackles to Prison Bars", The New York Times, September 29, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2017
  4. "Oscar Nominations". The Oscars. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on January 10, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  5. Smith, Nigel M. (September 26, 2016). "The 13th: inside Ava DuVernay's Netflix prison documentary on racial inequality". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
  6. Cooper, Alexia D.; Smith, Erica L. (November 16, 2011). Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 (Report). Bureau of Justice Statistics. p. 11. NCJ 236018. Archived from the original on March 30, 2018.
  7. Lockett, Dee (July 19, 2016). "Ava DuVernay's The 13th Will Be the First Documentary to Ever Open the New York Film Festival". Vulture.
  8. Cox, Gordon (July 19, 2016). "2016 New York Film Festival to Open With Ava DuVernay Documentary 'The 13th'". Variety.
  9. Calvario, Liz. "13TH: A Conversation with Oprah Winfrey & Ava DuVernay Clip". IndieWire. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  10. "13TH | FULL FEATURE | Netflix". YouTube. April 17, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  11. "13th (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
  12. "13th reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  13. "20 Best Movies of 2016". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
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