Nickel Boys review: Colson Whitehead adaptation is an artistically daring masterpiece
1 week ago

Nickel Boys review: Colson Whitehead adaptation is an artistically daring masterpiece

The Independent  

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. It’s the question that shapes RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys, a more artistically daring literary adaptation than almost any other of its peers. Whitehead’s book is a fictionalised account of a friendship forged by two Black students at Nickel Academy, a so-called “reform school”, a euphemistic turn of phrase used to describe a juvenile penal institution. POV: Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in ‘Nickel Boys’ It’s a kind of internal detective work reflected on screen, before the film suddenly flashes forward to an older Elwood, as he tries to make peace between his memories and the incoming news that mass graves have been discovered at Nickel. Violence, in Nickel Boys, isn’t presented in the uncompromising way other filmmakers have argued for, but as fractured, disassociated – the way the mind might allow it to replay.

Boys Turner Nickel Whitehead Nickel Boys Elwood Pov Ethan Herisse Brandon Wilson  boys  elwood  artistically  colson  memory  adaptation  masterpiece  cinematic  wilson  way  talk  review  nickel  turner  whitehead  daring  ethan

History of this topic

Why RaMell Ross insisted on a distinct POV for ‘Nickel Boys,’ his feature debut
2 weeks, 2 days ago

Why RaMell Ross insisted on a distinct POV for ‘Nickel Boys,’ his feature debut

LA Times  

No two filmmakers travel the same path to their chosen profession. RaMell Ross has traveled one unlike that of almost anyone else to direct his lauded feature debut, “Nickel Boys.” Before adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, he was a documentarian, and before that a photographer. Daringly, the film is largely told from Elwood’s perspective — literally, as the camera …

Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a priceless paean to the lives of victimized reform-school kids
2 weeks, 5 days ago

Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a priceless paean to the lives of victimized reform-school kids

LA Times  

The 2012 discovery of a mass unmarked grave on the grounds of the Florida School for Boys was the sort of headline that short-circuits the brain. A straight adaption would pack power, but it’s even better that the book came into the hands of a true humanist like RaMell Ross. It’s possible to read Whitehead’s book and think, “How could …

He had a radical idea. Here’s how RaMell Ross and his team got inside ‘Nickel Boys’
2 weeks, 6 days ago

He had a radical idea. Here’s how RaMell Ross and his team got inside ‘Nickel Boys’

LA Times  

Cinema’s most transcendent promise is that it can put us in another person’s shoes. Told mostly in the first-person point of view, director RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” is an experiential — and experimental — adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel from 2019. “Nickel Boys” is Ross’ first foray into scripted fiction following his Oscar-nominated, nonlinear documentary “Hale County This Morning, …

‘Nickel Boys’: Framing beauty in irreconcilable circumstances
3 weeks ago

‘Nickel Boys’: Framing beauty in irreconcilable circumstances

LA Times  

Director RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” has an intimacy to its photography that immerses you in the harrowing story adapted from Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel. Framed through a first-person perspective, the story of two Black teens attending a harsh reformatory school during the Jim Crow South is layered by cinematographer Jomo Fray in a “symbolically dense” palette so that the “images …

Yes, we wrote ‘Nickel Boys’ with POV in mind, but it went further and deeper than that
3 weeks, 1 day ago

Yes, we wrote ‘Nickel Boys’ with POV in mind, but it went further and deeper than that

LA Times  

In producing RaMell Ross’ debut documentary, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” I came to appreciate the extraordinary patience he’d acquired in making images, which allows the camera to act as an extension of consciousness. So when we read Colson Whitehead’s remarkable novel “The Nickel Boys,” which was offered to us by Plan B to adapt as a director-producer team, …

The Nickel Boys movie makes a radical choice—for a very good reason.
3 weeks, 3 days ago

The Nickel Boys movie makes a radical choice—for a very good reason.

Slate  

On a downtown street in Tallahassee, 1965, a young Black man stands in front of a store window filled with television sets, his faint reflection barely visible amid the colorful ads for Florida grapefruit. Although Elwood Curtis is the protagonist of RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys, we rarely see him so clearly as in that fleeting moment. With his Oscar-nominated Hale …

A stunning achievement in filmmaking, "Nickel Boys" shatters expectations at every turn
3 weeks, 5 days ago

A stunning achievement in filmmaking, "Nickel Boys" shatters expectations at every turn

Salon  

Without fail, there is at least one big movie every year that falls prey to the adage “style over substance,” a film that postures as an opus, but is really just filled with hot air and covered in papier-mâché with the word “masterpiece” scrawled all over its still-drying surface. It would be easy for an undiscerning eye to dismiss director …

Movie Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a knockout, one of the most powerful films of the year
3 weeks, 5 days ago

Movie Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a knockout, one of the most powerful films of the year

Hindustan Times  

A movie shot in first person sounds like a gimmick. Movie Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a knockout, one of the most powerful films of the year And yet, with “Nickel Boys,” filmmaker RaMell Ross not only commits to the idea but delivers one of the most powerful films of the year in the process — a lyrical, heartbreaking and haunting …

Movie Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a knockout, one of the most powerful films of the year
Trending News
3 weeks, 5 days ago

Movie Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is a knockout, one of the most powerful films of the year

Associated Press  

A movie shot in first person sounds like a gimmick. And yet, with “Nickel Boys,” filmmaker RaMell Ross not only commits to the idea but delivers one of the most powerful films of the year in the process — a lyrical, heartbreaking and haunting journey into the darkness of a brutal reform school in the Jim Crow South. Ross and …

Nickel Boys: How one of 2019’s most acclaimed books became one of 2024’s most acclaimed movies.
3 weeks, 5 days ago

Nickel Boys: How one of 2019’s most acclaimed books became one of 2024’s most acclaimed movies.

Slate  

In 2019 RaMell Ross’ impressionistic documentary of Black life in rural Alabama, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, was nominated for an Academy Award. It was very mysterious, because the meeting’s supposed to be for an hour, and an hour and 45 minutes into it, it’s like, “I guess we’re hanging out.” And then at the end they bring up …

In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see
3 weeks, 5 days ago

In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see

Associated Press  

NEW YORK — RaMell Ross sometimes sends his photography students out on a unique assignment. In “Nickel Boys,” one of the most thrillingly innovative American films of the decade, Ross adapts Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. “The power is in the self and the eyes.” For Ross, who teaches visual art at Brown University, “Nickel Boys” isn’t just about …

Nickel Boys: The blistering drama showing the US's racist past from a new, first-person perspective
3 weeks, 6 days ago

Nickel Boys: The blistering drama showing the US's racist past from a new, first-person perspective

BBC  

Nickel Boys: The blistering drama showing the US's racist past from a new, first-person perspective L Kasimu Harris The Oscar-tipped film by RaMell Ross adapts Colson Whitehead's novel about two boys at an abusive "reform" school and shoots it from their point of view. The innovative new film from director RaMell Ross is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by …

Two young actors find a safe space to explore brutality with ‘Nickel Boys’
1 month, 2 weeks ago

Two young actors find a safe space to explore brutality with ‘Nickel Boys’

LA Times  

When Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson got the call for “Nickel Boys,” they each sent in an audition tape and waited. Herisse’s biggest role to that date was as Yusef Salaam of the Central Park Five in Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us”; Wilson’s was as Brandon Durrett, the charismatic point guard on a basketball team coached by Ben Affleck …

At Telluride, ‘Conclave’ pleases, even if other Oscar hopefuls aren’t ready for prime time
4 months, 1 week ago

At Telluride, ‘Conclave’ pleases, even if other Oscar hopefuls aren’t ready for prime time

LA Times  

The camera tips skyward in several early moments of RaMell Ross’ exquisite, elliptical “Nickel Boys.” It’s counterintuitive when a filmmaker does this: Let’s assemble all these beautiful actors and sets, the whole of a movie’s production design, but instead, turn our attention to the clouds, an exploding beam of sunlight, the swaying trees, an orange ripe for picking. Ralph Fiennes …

Adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s ‘Nickel Boys’ to open New York Film Festival this fall
5 months, 2 weeks ago

Adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s ‘Nickel Boys’ to open New York Film Festival this fall

Associated Press  

“Nickel Boys,” an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, will open the 62nd New York Film Festival in September, organizers said Monday. “’Nickel Boys’ signals the emergence of a major filmmaking voice,” said Dennis Lim, the festival’s artistic director, in a statement. “RaMell Ross’ fiction debut, like his previous work in photography and documentary, searches for new ways of …

Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Nickel Boys’ wins Pulitzer Prize
4 years, 8 months ago

Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Nickel Boys’ wins Pulitzer Prize

Associated Press  

NEW YORK — Colson Whitehead became the rare author to receive Pulitzers for consecutive books when his novel about a brutal Florida reform school during the Jim Crow era, “The Nickel Boys,” was awarded the fiction prize Monday. Three years ago, he won for his Civil War era novel “The Underground Railroad.” Pulitzer judges praised “The Nickel Boys” as “a …

Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, reviewed.
55 years ago

Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, reviewed.

Slate  

The longtime Colson Whitehead fan faces a quandary. The publication of his new novel, The Nickel Boys, has been greeted by a cover story in Time magazine, its headline declaring him “America’s Storyteller” blazoned across a photo of Whitehead looking off into the distance with the slight frown of weighty destiny on his brow. That’s how he saw it, how …

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