The Butler film article from Wikipedia

 


The Butler
The Butler poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Lee Daniels
Produced by
Pamela Oas Williams
Laura Ziskin
 Lee Daniels
 Buddy Patrick
Cassian Elwes
Written by
Danny Strong
Based on
A Butler Well Served by This Election
 by Wil Haygood
Starring
Forest Whitaker
Oprah Winfrey
Music by
Rodrigo Leão
Cinematography
Andrew Dunn
Editing by
Joe Klotz
Studio
Laura Ziskin Productions
 Windy Hill Pictures
Distributed by
The Weinstein Company
Release date(s)
August 16, 2013
 
Running time
132 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$30 million[1][2]
Box office
$93,744,229[1]
The Butler (full title Lee Daniels' The Butler)[3][4] is a 2013 American historical drama film directed by Lee Daniels, written by Danny Strong, and featuring an ensemble cast.[5] Loosely inspired by the real-life of Eugene Allen, the film stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, an African-American who eyewitnesses notable events of the 20th century during his 34-year tenure serving as a White House butler.[6][7] It was the last film produced by Laura Ziskin,[8][9] who died in 2011.
The film was theatrically released by The Weinstein Company on August 16, 2013, to mostly positive reviews[10][11] and was a sleeper hit, grossing $93.7 million in the United States against a budget of $30 million.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Development
3.2 Filming
4 Reception 4.1 Critical response
4.2 Box office
5 Historical accuracy
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit source]
The film begins in 2009, where an elderly Cecil Gaines recounts his life story, while waiting in the White House. Gaines was raised in a cotton plantation in 1920s Macon, Georgia, by his sharecropping parents. One day, the farm's temperamental owner, Thomas Westfall, rapes Cecil's mother, Hattie Pearl. Cecil's father, Earl, confronts Westfall, and is shot dead. Cecil is taken in by Annabeth Westfall, the estate's caretaker, who reassigns Cecil to being a house servant instead. In his teens, he leaves behind the Westfall plantation and his mother, who has been mute since the incident. One night, Cecil breaks into a pastry shop and is, unexpectedly, hired by the owners. While working in the shop, he acquires skills from the master servant, Maynard. After several years, Maynard recommends Cecil for a position in a Washington D.C. hotel which Cecil accepts. While working at the hotel, Cecil meets Gloria, and the couple have two children: Louis and Charlie. In 1957, Cecil is hired by the White House during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, where White House maître d' Freddie Fallows shows Cecil the grounds and introduces him to head butler Carter Wilson and co-worker James Holloway. Working in the White House, Cecil witnesses first hand Eisenhower's reluctance to use troops to enforce school desegregation in the South, then the President's resolve to uphold the law by ordering to racially integrate a high school in Little Rock.
The Gaines family celebrates Cecil's new occupation with their closest friends and neighbors, Howard and Gina. Louis, the eldest son, becomes a first generation university student at Fisk University in Tennessee. Cecil is hesitant about this because he thinks the South is too volatile and encourages Louis to enroll at Howard University. Louis joins a student program led by James Lawson, to peacefully engage in a sit-in at a segregated diner and is arrested. Furious, Cecil heads to Nashville where he confronts Louis for disobeying him. Gloria, feeling isolated from her husband, becomes an alcoholic and reluctantly engages in a brief affair with the Gaineses' neighbor, Howard.
In 1961, after John F. Kennedy's election, Louis and a dozen others are attacked by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling on a bus in Alabama. Kennedy, spurred by the nation's growing turbulence, delivers a national address proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Several months after the speech, Kennedy is assassinated and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, enacts the transformative legislation into law. As a goodwill gesture, Jackie Kennedy presents Cecil with one of the former president's neckties before she leaves the White House.
In the late 1960s, after civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, Louis returns home and tells his family that he and a few others have founded a chapter of the radical organization called the Black Panthers. Aware of Richard Nixon's plans to suppress the movement and upset at his son's actions, Cecil orders Louis and his girlfriend, Carol, to leave his house. Louis is soon arrested and is bailed out by Carter. The Gaineses' other son, Charlie, confides to Louis that he plans to join American forces in the war in Vietnam, to which Louis admits that he wouldn't attend his funeral if he were to be killed. Indeed, a few months later, the Gaines family hold a funeral for Charlie, which Louis does not attend, much to the dismay of his enraged father. However, when the Black Panthers begin to exercise violence in response to racial confrontations, Louis leaves the organization and returns to college, earning his master's degree in political science and eventually winning a seat in Congress.
Meanwhile, Cecil's professional reputation has grown to the point that in the 1980s, he is invited by Ronald and Nancy Reagan as a guest to a state dinner. Cecil realizes that the invitation was just for show, as Reagan plans to veto any Congressional sanctions against South Africa. Cecil announces his resignation to the President, but not before gaining Reagan's support in his years-long effort to have the black White House staff receive the same rate of salary and opportunities for career advancement as their white counterparts.
Gloria, wanting Cecil to mend his estranged relationship with Louis, reveals to him that Louis once told her that he loved and respected them both. Realizing his son's actions to be heroic rather than antagonistic, Cecil joins Louis in a protest against South African apartheid.
The film then advances to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, where an elderly Gloria dies shortly before Obama is elected as the nation's first African-American president, a milestone which leaves Cecil and Louis in awe. The film ends with Cecil preparing to meet the inaugurated Obama in the White House.
Cast[edit source]
Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines,[5] the film's main character, who dedicates his life to becoming a professional domestic worker. Aml Ameen portrays a young Cecil.[12]
Gaines' private lifeOprah Winfrey as Gloria Gaines,[5] Cecil's wife.
David Oyelowo as Louis Gaines,[5] the Gaineses' eldest and most volatile son.
Elijah Kelley as Charlie Gaines,[12] the Gaineses' youngest son.
David Banner as Earl Gaines,[12] Cecil's father, who is killed by Thomas Westfall.
Mariah Carey as Hattie Pearl,[13] Cecil's mother.
Terrence Howard as Howard,[5] the Gaineses' neighbor who romantically pursues Gloria.
Adriane Lenox as Gina.[12][14]
Yaya DaCosta as Carol Hammie, Louis's girlfriend.[15]
Alex Pettyfer as Thomas Westfall,[5] the temperamental plantation owner who kills Earl after Earl protests Westfall's raping Cecil's mother.
Vanessa Redgrave as Annabeth Westfall,[5] an elderly cotton farm caretaker who makes Cecil a house servant following the death of his father.
Clarence Williams III as Maynard,[12][14] an elderly man who mentors a young Cecil and introduces him to his profession.
White House co-workersCuba Gooding, Jr. as Carter Wilson,[5][12] the fast-talking head butler at the White House who becomes a longtime friend of Cecil's.
Lenny Kravitz as James Holloway,[5][12] a co-worker butler and friend of Cecil's at the White House.
Colman Domingo as Freddie Fallows,[12][15] the White House maitre d' who hires Cecil.
White House historical figuresRobin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower,[5][16] the 34th President of the United States.
James DuMont as Sherman Adams, Eisenhower's White House Chief of Staff.[14][17]
Robert Aberdeen as Herbert Brownell, Jr., Eisenhower's Attorney General.[14]
James Marsden as John F. Kennedy,[5][16] the 35th President.
Minka Kelly as First Lady Jackie Kennedy.[16]
Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson,[5][16] the 36th President.
John Cusack as Richard Nixon,[5][16] the 37th President.
Alex Manette as H. R. Haldeman,[5] Nixon's White House Chief of Staff.
Colin Walker as John Ehrlichman, Nixon's White House Counsel.[14][18]
Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan,[5][16] the 40th President.
Jane Fonda as First Lady Nancy Reagan.[14]
Stephen Rider as Stephen W. Rochon, Barack Obama's White House Chief Usher.[14]
Civil rights historical figuresNelsan Ellis as Martin Luther King, Jr..[5][16]
Jesse Williams as civil rights activist James Lawson.[15]
Danny Strong, the film's screenwriter, makes a cameo appearance as one of the Freedom Riders who are attacked in Alabama.
Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson are depicted in archival footage.[19][20]
Melissa Leo and Orlando Eric Street were cast as First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and Barack Obama, respectively, but did not appear in the finished film.[5][21][22][23]
Production[edit source]
Development[edit source]
Danny Strong's screenplay is inspired by a The Washington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election".[11][24][25] The project started picking up backing in early 2011, when producers Laura Ziskin and Pam Williams approached Sheila Johnson for help in financing the film. After reading Danny Strong's screenplay, Johnson pitched in her own $2.7 million before getting in several African-American investors. However, Ziskin died from cancer in June 2011. This left director Daniels and producing partner Hilary Shor to look for further producers on their own. They started with Cassian Elwes, with whom they were working on The Paperboy. Elwes joined the list of producers, and started raising funding for the film. In spring 2012, Icon U.K., a British financing and production company, added a $6 million guarantee against foreign presales. Finally the film raised its needed $30 million budget through 41 producers and executive producers, including Earl W. Stafford, Harry I. Martin Jr., Brett Johnson, Michael Finley, and Buddy Patrick. Thereafter,as film production started Weinstein Co. picked up U.S. distribution rights for the film. David Glasser, Weinstein Co. COO, called fund raising as an independent film, "a story that's a movie within itself."[2][26]
The Weinstein Company acquired the distribution rights for the film after Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround.[27][28]
The film's title was up for a possible rename due to a MPAA claim from Warner Bros., which released a 1916 silent short film with the same name.[8][29] The case was subsequently resolved with the MPAA granting the Weinstein Company permission to add Daniels' name in front of the title, under the condition that his name was "75% the size of The Butler".[30] On July 23, 2013, the distributor unveiled a revised poster, displaying the title as Lee Daniels' The Butler.[31]
Filming[edit source]
Principal photography started in September 2012, in New Orleans, but was marred by weather delays, which further pushed production costs to $30 million.[2]
Reception[edit source]
Critical response[edit source]
The Butler received mostly positive reviews from critics, with a 73% "Fresh" rating on the film critic aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 116 reviews. The site's consensus says, "Gut-wrenching and emotionally affecting, Lee Daniels' The Butler overcomes an uneven script thanks to strong performances from an all-star cast."[32] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 66 based on 43 reviews, indicating "generally positive reviews".[33]
Todd McCarthy praised the film saying, "Even with all contrivances and obvious point-making and familiar historical signposting, Daniels' The Butler is always engaging, often entertaining and certainly never dull."[34] Richard Roeper lauded the film's casting in particular, remarking that "Forest Whitaker gives the performance of his career".[35] Rolling Stone also spoke highly of Whitaker writing that his "reflective, powerfully understated performance...fills this flawed film with potency and purpose."[19] Variety wrote that "Daniels develops a strong sense of the inner complexities and contradictions of the civil-rights landscape."[36] USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and noted that "It's inspiring and filled with fine performances, but the insistently swelling musical score and melodramatic moments seem calculated and undercut a powerful story."[37]
Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times was more negative; "An ambitious and overdue attempt to create a Hollywood-style epic around the experience of black Americans in general and the civil rights movement in particular, it undercuts itself by hitting its points squarely on the nose with a 9-pound hammer."[38] Several critics compared the film's historical anecdotes and sentimentality to Forrest Gump.[39][40][41][42]
President Barack Obama said, "I teared up thinking about not just the butlers who worked here in the White House, but an entire generation of people who were talented and skilled. But because of Jim Crow and because of discrimination, there was only so far they could go."[43]
Box office[edit source]
In its opening weekend, the film debuted in first place with $24.6 million.[44][45] The film topped the North American box office in its first three consecutive weeks.[46][47] The film has grossed $93,744,229 in the United States.[1]
Historical accuracy[edit source]
On the account of historical accuracy Eliana Dockterman wrote in the Time: "Allen was born on a Virginia plantation in 1919, not in Georgia. ... In the movie, Cecil Gaines grows up on a cotton field in Macon, Ga., where his family comes into conflict with the white farmers for whom they work. What befalls his parents on the cotton field was added for dramatic effect. ... Though tension between father and son over civil rights issues fuels most of the drama in the film, Charles Allen was not the radical political activist that Gaines’s son is in the movie."[48]
Particular criticism has been directed at the film's accuracy in portraying President Ronald Reagan. While actor Alan Rickman's performance generated positive reviews, the screenwriters of the film have been criticized for depicting Reagan as indifferent to civil rights and his reluctance to associate with the White House's black employees during his presidency. According to Michael Reagan, the former president's son, "The real story of the White House butler doesn't imply racism at all. It's simply Hollywood liberals wanting to believe something about my father that was never there."[49][50] Paul Kengor, one of President Reagan's biographers, also attacked the film, saying, "I’ve talked to many White House staff, cooks, housekeepers, doctors, and Secret Service over the years. They are universal in their love of Ronald Reagan." In regard to the president's initial opposition to supporting apartheid in South Africa, Kengor said, “Ronald Reagan was appalled by apartheid, but also wanted to ensure that if the apartheid regime collapsed in South Africa that it wasn’t replaced by a Marxist-totalitarian regime allied with Moscow and Cuba that would take the South African people down the same road as Ethiopia, Mozambique, and, yes, Cuba. In the immediate years before Reagan became president, 11 countries from the Third World, from Asia to Africa to Latin America, went Communist. It was devastating. If the film refuses to deal with this issue with the necessary balance, it shouldn’t deal with it at all."[51] As for his supposed racial behavior in the film, during his life President Reagan was well-known for being courteous to African-Americans long before the Civil Rights Movement. One notable example was when a young Reagan invited two black football teammates to spend the night at his house when hotels refused to accommodate them. Another occurred when he publicly encouraged the Screen Actors Guild to provide more employment for black actors during his career in the industry.[citation needed]
Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote: "There is no question that the film itself is full of historical inaccuracies. The Butler has virtually nothing in common with its source material, the life of White House butler Gene Allen, except for the fact that the main character of the film and Allen were both black butlers in the White House. The film’s title character, Cecil Gaines, sees his father murdered and his mother raped by a white landowner; that never happened to Allen. The movie’s title character has two children, one who goes to the Vietnam War, the other who becomes a Civil Rights pioneer; Allen actually had only one son."[52]