RaMell Ross isn’t preoccupied with filmmaking conventions — the first-time fictional feature director/documentarian, photographer, and writer says there is no wrong or right way to experience the film.
So, what’s Nickel Boys about, and why is it generating Oscar buzz already?
Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-prize-winning book for fiction in 2020 with the same name, Nickel Boys begins with fractured images of Elwood Curtis’ (Ethan Herisse, When They See Us) life, a prominent theme throughout that begs the viewer to interpret the story as they’re viewing it instead of it being spoonfed. Elwood, a promising Black teen in the Jim Crow era, makes a fateful mistake on his way to a free college for gifted Black students, leading to incarceration in a brutal reformatory school known as the Nickel Academy for law-breaking boys.
At the Nickel Acadamy, he forges a friendship with a streetsmart, jaded youth named Jack Turner (Brandon Wilson, The Way Back). Steeped in the Civil Rights movement, the film juxtaposes images of Dr. Martin Luther King (one of Elwood’s heroes) and actual documents from the actual Dozier school in Tallahassee, Florida.
Over 100 boys, Black and white, died at the school, many buried in unmarked graves. It’s heartwrenching and infuriating to learn about the abuses the school engaged in. Still, Ross, with his visual storytelling tapestry, evokes empathy and hope in these characters, unlike any other film in its genre addressing trauma and injustice in Black culture.
I chatted with RaMell Ross, who directed the 2019 Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, right before Nicole Boy’s theatrical release to discuss the film’s exploration of visuals to aid the storytelling, the shift in narrative point-of-view and the absence of dialogue close to the end of the first act.
MV: Why did you approach the visual components vs. a dialogue-driven narrative, and what kind of response have you received from audiences?
RR: The film elicits such a subjective response — it has a plethora of images from across time and ones created on set, dealing with real events. The range of reactions has not been the same; some people have reacted to the wordlessness, while others have praised it. The film taps into people’s relationships to trauma, imagining other people’s agency, their own agency, and how they received information in the past, which is a bit of a mind bend. The default in cinema has been to show the visuals outright as far as depicting trauma. The point-of-view in this film does something that’s off-edge.
MV: Plan B approached you to write and direct this film. It’s quite a unique position, where the money backers are soliciting you instead of being the other way around. What was your take on making this film before and after reading the book?
RR: I was hesitant in general. I’m a hesitant maker. It takes a lot to make something, especially if it doesn’t originate from me or my writing process. Before reading the book, I thought, hey, it’s Plan B. They’ve done a lot of incredible work and supported artists. Then I read the book, realized its impact, thought about methods to adapt it, and started conversing with Joslyn Barnes (This Changes Everything), my co-writer and producer, who I sought. Trouble-shooting the point-of-view of the film and researching the Dozier School documents. Everything started to build itself out. In the context of the Dozier School boy’s story, this form and these ideas seem to be an unprecedented connection between form and content. That could have powerful ripples.
MV: When writing the screenplay, did you and Joslyn consult with author Colson Whitehead on the script’s development or your process for writing it?
RR: His involvement was non-existent. Colson Whitehead had no role in developing the screenplay. He, Dede Garder, and Jeremy Kleiner (Producers and co-presidents of Plan B) chose me to direct the film after seeing Hale County This Morning, This Evening. I sent him a Thank you note and was gushing about his talents. Whitehead responded with, “Go luck, man. You got it.” Which was great. In essence, giving me permission to execute my vision.
MV: In retrospect, after watching dailies and working with the team you had, is there anything you would’ve done differently conceptually when creating this film?
RR: Perhaps if the film is well received and makes AFI’s (American Film Institute) top 10 films, I would have included a clause in my contract to pay me more money, like 5 million (laughs). It’s easy to say in hindsight. I can’t imagine making this film with another DP, production, costume designer, producer, or co-writer. The film has many hands in it, and there are so many brushstrokes from creatives I trust. I think it would’ve collapsed had we approached it differently. It’s a pretty fickle relationship between elements. And this film works because of a marriage of 20 different elements.
MV: What do you think the reaction will be in Florida and other places to Nickel Boys that ignore and try to ban stories, whether in books or cinema, dealing with marginalized people and their experiences?
RR: It’s crazy to me that the book burning was part of our past, and now we’re dealing with it again. In Florida, especially where the Dozier school existed, the government acknowledged wrongdoing and awful truths but didn’t apologize. There’s this erasure of narratives taking place openly. And art, especially through Colson’s book and now the Nickel Boys adaptation, is emerging while powers that be are trying to suppress it. The hope is that people start having conversations about the past and continue to be inspired to make art that addresses these topics and gives way to new voices!
MV: Given your success as a documentarian and now feature filmmaker, what advice would you give first-time and seasoned filmmakers?
RR: Find Jesus and pray! (laughs). I respectfully say this to seasoned directors: the more specific, personal, idiosyncratic, and intimate to your own life and vision, the better the art will be. As unique as your films are, like your footprints, fingerprints, or brainwaves, that’s interesting and missing from mainstream cinema. Suppose people were making profoundly personal and deeply specific films in the commercial space. In that case, I think the world would be genuinely different because we would have access to the types of truths that are as singular as human beings and not the squished-down truths accessible and palatable for folks for the sake of watching the next show or film.
Watch Nickel Boys, an evocative and visually stimulating experimental film that lets viewers interpret the narrative through their imagination and lived experiences with a stellar cast that inhabited these characters so naturally; they were born to play these roles, especially Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Hattie, King Richard)—now playing in select theaters nationwide. Click here to see movie schedules and times.
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