Beyond Books is a column intended to alert Arts Knoxville readers to interesting music and video materials new to Knox County Public Library’s fabulous Sights & Sounds collection. As our collection of Blu-ray, 4K, and streaming titles continues to grow, we’ll also revisit classics and oddities as they become available in modern formats.
Watch for links or click on the covers: you’ll be invited to connect directly to KCPL’s catalog where you can place items on reserve and have them delivered to your favorite branch … or simply stream them at your convenience.
RBG
(Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2018, DVD, approx. 98 minutes, Dir: Julie Cohen and Betsy West )
It is ethical to obey a law only if that law is just. (Guess who’s going to night school.) Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has crafted a long and impressive career by drawing attention to unjust laws and other codified bad behavior, much of which has been rectified in the meantime. Ginsburg, a diminutive and bespectacled Jewish grandmother of few words, is an unlikely hero. But she has been an engine behind many of the most important strides toward gender equity made during the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States.
Filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West do a good job of balancing Ginsburg’s illustrious legal career with the curious phenomenon of the cult of hip young feminists who have claimed her in recent years. Equally inspiring is the narrative thread that describes the justice’s seemingly fondness-filled family life. Martin Ginsburg, a tax attorney of what would become international renown, married Ruth Bader in 1954 and was her most vocal proponent until his death in 2010. Children and grandchildren refer to her as Bubbie—Yiddish for grandmother. At age 85, RBG has twice survived cancer and one major heart operation. And we’re treated to several sessions of Ginsburg with her personal trainer at the “justices-only” private gym at the Supreme Court.
The flat manner in which Ginsburg, both as attorney and justice, addresses the ridiculous inequities that bring her to court is enough to embarrass everyone involved. In 1973, as head of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, Ginsburg argued and won on behalf of a female service member who was denied the off-base housing allowance received by her married male co-workers. In 1975 she argued and won for a widower who was raising an infant alone but had been denied what had always been referred to as “mother’s benefits.” Ginsburg did not win the final case she argued before the Supreme Court, which challenged Missouri’s policy of voluntary jury duty for women. A perfect demonstration of the entrenched thinking that Ginsburg—and women—are still up against, then Associate Justice William Rehnquist quips after her final arguments, “Isn’t it enough that we put Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar?”
Miss Stevens
(The Orchard, 2016, 2018 DVD, 86 minutes, Dir: Julia Hart)
An understated gem of a film, Miss Stevens follows a carload of high school drama students on a weekend-away competition. The teenagers are sweet enough. The teacher/driver/chaperone of the title appears to be less than 10 years older than her students, and only slightly more advanced emotionally. The plot is straightforward. The potential pitfalls foreshadowed are not monumental. Still, it is impossible to relax while watching pubescent teens confined in a car or, even worse, unconfined in a big hotel. Nothing good can come of it. It would be less stressful to tag along with one of Saint-Exupéry’s daredevil pilots screaming over the Andes during a night-time electrical storm with a payload of nitro-glycerin.
Surprisingly, a few good things do come of it.
We see early on that Miss Stevens (Lily Rabe) is in some pain, perhaps damaged by it. Just before hitting the road, Miss Stevens is warned by her principal that Billy (Timothée Chalamet) will be spending the weekend off meds, as an experiment. Margot (Lili Reinhart) is the most mature member of the group, more school board than drama club. And surely there are inclusion points to be had for a film in which the most well-adjusted character is the out actor Sam (Anthony Quintal), well on his way to becoming a drag queen.
Speaking of lightning and explosives, whose idea was it to teach teenagers—as if they’re not manipulative enough—acting skills?
Billy and his teacher undergo a handful of scenes—intimate but without inappropriate behavior—during which they reveal glimpses of what torments them. When you watch this with receding gray hair you pretty much have to consider these two people, attracted to each other but off limits due to circumstances, as members of the same generation. Impressively, they manage to prevent their chemistry from adding to their problems. Kudos to writer-director Julia Hart for resisting that temptation.
The future is not clear for anyone who has been in Miss Stevens’ blue Volvo wagon. But the final, silent frames of the film are among the most rapturous and hopeful you’re likely to find in a film about “don’t.”
