Emancipation

The film is part slavery-era drama, part survival thriller, part war epic—and all confused.

While “Emancipation” was filmed long before that Oscars slap and the inevitable fallout, the film makes perfect sense as Will Smith's follow-up project.

Any discussion of "Emancipation" will inevitably be clouded by the Will Smith of it all, and Apple's decision to release the movie into the teeth of awards ...

Emancipation tells the story of Peter, a slave who escapes his plantation, but his journey is full of danger. Read our review.

The film stars Will Smith as an enslaved person seeking the promise of freedom enshrined in the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Emancipation” is out on Apple TV+. [WBUR.org.](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/12/09/emancipation-will-smith-slap) [Eric Deggans](https://www.npr.org/people/243254424/eric-deggans) joins us to talk about the film and how Smith is faring since slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Houston native Ronnie Gene Blevins was shaken to his core while on the set of 'Emancipation,' the historical drama starring Academy Award winner Will Smith.

[he was shaken to his core while on the set of his latest film](https://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/article/raul-castillo-the-inspection-17616267.php), Emancipation. Blevins plays Harrington, one of the white henchmen who works for Jim Fassel (Ben Foster), the camp’s merciless overseer. The historical drama, which [stars Academy Award winner Will Smith](https://ms-my.facebook.com/MySA/posts/will-smith-issues-apology-to-chris-rock-on-instagram-after-smacking-him-on-oscar/10160039513590762/) (King Richard), tells the story of Peter (Smith), a Black man who escapes a labor camp in Louisiana during the Civil War to gain his freedom.

Apple TV+'s original movie, Emancipation, sees Will Smith's return to film after King Richard. He's joined by a few seasoned actors in his latest.

Jeremiah Friedlander is best known for his role as Fourteen in the Netflix series Stranger Things. Aaron Moten is best known for his roles in Jabbar Lewis is best known for his role in the TV miniseries The Vacation. Ronnie Gene Blevins is best known for his roles in Gilbert Owuor is best known for his roles in the TV series Goliath, Reprisal, Mute, and No Man of God. Jayson Warner Smith is best known for his roles in The Birth of a Nation,

Antoine Fuqua's 'Emancipation' has a unique and interesting visual style to complement its beautifully-told story.

It is that quiet moment that echoes the loudest, with Smith’s grimace, bearing frustration and humiliation, causing it to feel all the more painful. Since so much of the film is centered around Peter’s journey to freedom, it’s a bit jarring for the narrative to come to what seems like a natural close only for one to discover that 40-odd minutes remain, and that pacing hiccup can be found again at other moments, such as when we return to his family in their captivity at pivotal moments in his tale (why one would cut away from Smith battling an alligator is somewhat baffling). He has slowly been absorbing the layout of the camp and his quarters, waiting for a sign from God, and this act proves to be the one he needs. Even more impressive is when Fuqua seems to directly echo and one-up Mendes, such as an astonishingly gorgeous shot where Peter makes his way across a beach, surrounded by the bloated corpses of soldiers taken straight from Matthew Brady’s stills, and the camera cranes up behind him for us to see a Union ship shelling a Confederate position far off down the water. He wants to make the materials of history come alive and enhance the feeling, much in the way that Andrew Dominik did in a more subtle fashion in Jesse James, with Deakins’ occasional lapses into Malick-like dream imagery as if glimpsed through slightly warped and foggy windows. Emancipation is styled to look like a daguerreotype — the primary way one made photographs in the era before celluloid film, which has a more gunmetal color to them than a traditional grayscale given that the photographers were exposing chemical-covered metal plates to light.

Will Smith in "Emancipation," premiering Dec. 9, 2022, on Apple TV+. Quantrell Colbert—Apple TV+. Ideas. By Janell ...

The film, starring and produced by Will Smith, debuted on Apple TV+ on Dec. 9.

[Apple One](https://www.apple.com/apple-one/), which bundles Apple TV+ with up to five other services for one low price. Read on for details on how to stream the movie for free. That means you can stream Emancipation and anything else on the platform without paying anything up front. One of the images, “The Scourged Back,” captures the sheer brutality and inhumanity of slavery, showing Peter’s – whose real name was Gordon – welted back riddled with keloids from the severe beatings handed down by slave masters. “That’s unacceptable to me.” All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors.

From left: Will Smith and Ben Foster in a scene from "Emancipation." Quantrell Colbert/Apple TV+. A version of this story appeared in Pop Life ...

While I think it’s way too soon for the Academy to consider that, what people really want to know is whether his performance in “Emancipation” will be enough to blot out the bruise the slap left on his reputation. She smelled like cinnamon buns and sangria.” Titled “Me Vs. Don’t let the title worry you, she did not get lost along the way. [feel less alone](https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/health/anderson-cooper-all-there-is-grief-podcast-wellness/index.html). [he received the Icon Award](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/entertainment/ryan-reynolds-blake-lively-peoples) at the 2022 People’s Choice Awards, which aired this week. [ “Harry & Meghan” ](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/entertainment/harry-meghan-netflix-date/index.html)are streaming on Netflix now. I’ve got some things I definitely want to do better next year. [this new Netflix release](https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/liz-garbus-harry-meghan-netflix/index.html), which allows Harry and Meghan to share their version of [the soap opera](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/08/entertainment/harry-meghan-netflix-documentary-release-intl/index.html) that was their lives while [members of the royal family](https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/30/uk/meghan-sussex-threats-intl-scli/index.html) – and in the years since they stepped back from “the firm.” [he is still eligible for nominations](https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/entertainment/will-smith-emancipation-oscars-slap/index.html). [ slapped presenter Chris Rock](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/27/entertainment/will-smith-chris-rock/index.html) earlier in the show. [working on your New Year’s resolutions](https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/01/health/how-to-set-new-year-resolutions-wellness/index.html) yet?

A runaway slave escapes through Louisiana's swamps in a propulsive action film marred by its relentless grimness.

Finding himself cruelly separated from his wife and children, he escapes through the Louisiana swamps, outwitting alligators and Ben Foster’s sneering, sadistic overseer. In a chase picture that evolves into a war movie, the storytelling is propulsive, but it’s cheapened by crude and manipulative film-making choices. Antoine Fuqua’s thuddingly unsubtle Will Smith-starring slavery drama is an unusually ugly picture.

'Emancipation' Comes From A World-Changing Photo Of The Scarred Back Of A Freed Slave; Can Academy Get Past A Slap And Judge A Worthy Film On The Merits? Will ...

I watched it happen and I’ve been with Will on this film for a couple years now and straight up he is one of the most incredible men I’ve ever met, one of the nicest I’ve met in my life. At some point, we have to put the attention back on the art, which is what it’s supposed to be about. The illustration and depiction of this kind of brutality, and also beauty alongside the brutality, it illustrates the wrong way and the highest possibilities in the same frame, sometimes. My hope is we keep the focus on the work, and let Chris and Will work out that personal situation themselves. After awhile, I thought, this can’t be, this is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life, a very spiritual person. It is critical and important to me to get this story out and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure this beautiful team of world-class artists isn’t penalized for my behavior.” We’re supposed to have these awards shows and all these other things, judged on the work. Not with anger, not with vengeance, just, this is the ugliness in the way we treat each other. Some young people were born when Barack Obama was president and anything before was to be forgotten, with the discussion of what they were going to teach in the schools. “It became critical for me to illustrate the farthest extent of those ideas, when we let them take root and fester, what that can turn into. Said Fuqua: “It was a very strange feeling to watch George Floyd die that way and watch the world react. Smith once vowed he would not play a slave in a movie, but changed his mind because of the gravity of the situation.

Directed by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua and written by Assassin's Creed screenwriter Bill Collage, the movie tells the story of Peter (Will Smith) as he ...

In real-life, the photo of "Whipped Peter" was used by abolitionists, who sold prints of the image to raise money for their efforts to completely abolish slavery in the Confederate states. As in real-life, Will Smith's character, Peter removes his shirt to reveal the horrifying scars of the repeated brutality of his slave owners. According to historians, there are no records of what happened to Gordon after Union Port, and only the photo of "Whipped Peter" and the accompanying newspaper articles remained to tell his story. The image and its statement became better known than the man in the photo, a failing that Emancipation attempts to make up for, with some hefty dramatic license. The American Civil War was the earliest conflict to be documented through photography, as referenced by Peter's unfamiliarity with the camera in Emancipation. This is the siege of Union Port, which began in July 1863 and helped to divide the Confederacy (via The two men reunite at the Union camp in Baton Rouge, and it's tempting to see them as two sides of the real-life Gordon - Peter is the myth, while Gordon is the man. This is what drives Peter's journey to Baton Rouge, as he hopes to join the Union troops there, in the hope of eventually being reunited with his family. [3:10 to Yuma's Ben Foster](https://screenrant.com/ben-foster-310-yuma-movie-underrated-performance/) plays Jim Fassel, the overseer at the Confederate slave camp, and the man who hunts Peter through the Louisiana bayou. In Emancipation, Peter makes the decision to escape the camp after witnessing the brutal treatment of his fellow slaves, and burying their corpses. [Emancipation](http://screenrant.com/tag/emancipation) is inspired by the true story of a former slave, Gordon, who became known as "Whipped Peter" after a photograph of his scarred back was seen around the world during the latter stages of the American Civil War. In Emancipation, Peter is chased by a group of hunters led by Jim Fassel (Ben Foster), but this doesn't quite match up with the true story of the real "Whipped Peter".