‘Hidden’ tells little-known tale of NASA – ‘Have-Nots’ reveals transparent truth

This news has been read 5200 times!

NEW ORLEANS, July 3, (Agencies): Janelle Monae says she’s honored to be part of an upcoming film that tells the little known-story of three black women who were crucial part of NASA’s history, including one who helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit earth.

The Grammy-nominated singer is making her big screen debut in “Hidden Figures” which tells the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson — three women who worked at NASA in the 1960s.

“It is so important, that we as women, African-American women, tell our stories,” Monae said. “These three women opened doors for us and literally helped change the world.”

“Hidden Figures,” stars Taraji P. Henson as Johnson; Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer as Vaughan and Monae as Jackson. The women were mathematicians and Johnson helped calculate the trajectory for Glenn’s orbit around earth, among other accomplishments. The cast also includes Aldis Hodge, Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst. Segments of the film were shown to fans Friday at the Essence Festival, the annual four-day music festival geared toward black women.

Monae and Hodge, who plays Noah on WGN America’s hit series “Underground,” spoke afterward.

Monae said she cried when she received the script.

“I cried because I had never heard of Katherine Johnson or Dorothy Vaughan or Mary Jackson. But I know these women and their struggles,” she said. “I am Mary. I am so honored to play her. This film is so important because it shows black people and black women in a different light.”

Dangers

Hodge, who plays Jackson’s husband, Levi, said he relished the role. “He was an activist and had to deal with the dangers that came with that in the segregated south. And y’all see how feisty (Monae’s character) was? He had to come home and deal with her,” he said laughing.

The film, which is set for release Jan 13, 2017, is based on Margo Lee Shetterly’s book, “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.”

Hodge said he was surprised when he heard about the women’s stories.

“I was so surprised to find out that black women worked at NASA. Who knew? I didn’t and that’s devastating. Something this great should be common knowledge,” said Hodge, who grew up studying engineering and uses his talents to make watches.

Monae asked the audience who had seen the movie “Apollo 13.” Several hands went up. “Did you know these women helped on that project too and were not even mentioned in that movie?” she said.

“These women were pioneers. They won and even more important, America won. And that’s huge,” she said. “Without them we might still be trying to figure out how to get a shuttle into space.”

Astronaut Victor Glover, a former Navy pilot who was among eight selected to join the space program in 2013, thanked them for their work on the project.

“Thanks for telling this story,” he said. “I work with an amazing group of women, black women, at NASA and I want to thank you for them and my four daughters sitting over there. It’s important that they see what they can be and we need to tell them.”

Monae echoed him, saying, “It’s important for children, especially inner-city children to see their future selves in a different light. We’re not all the same. There’s so much depth to us and films like this help to change the stereotypes and make studying STEM cool. It’s absolutely the coolest thing to be able to send someone into space.”

Shetterley’s father worked with the women whose lives are the film’s subject and often told her stories about them. The only one still living is Johnson, who turns 97 in August. She was given the presidential medal of freedom from President Barack Obama last year.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that the reach of Florian Hoffmeister’s feature debut “The Have-Nots” somewhat exceeds its grasp. This is a film that attempts little less than to make a grand statement on the disaffection of an entire young, upwardly mobile, international generation in the wake of the seismic existential shock that was 9/11, even working in allusions to World War II. It’s actually more remarkable that Hoffmeister comes fairly close at times to fulfilling such gargantuan ambitions, in the form of a modest, black-and-white relationship drama. Based on Katharina Hacker’s award-winning novel of the same title (“Die Habenichtse”), and distinguished by two quietly credible performances in challenging central roles, “The Have-Nots” deserves praise for revealing an often transparent truth: that the ties that bind us to each other are irrevocably influenced by events over which we have no control. In short, this world can drive you mad, without you even noticing.

Restitution

Jacob (Sebastian Zimmler) meets his longtime best friend Hans (Ole Jagerpusch) for a drink following Jacob’s promotion at his Berlin law firm and Hans’ acceptance of a big job in restitution law in London. Both men travel to New York on business; Hans casually encourages Jacob to attend a Berlin gallery opening some days hence which artist Isabelle (Julia Jentsch) an ex for whom Jacob still carries a torch, is expected to attend. Next thing we know, Jacob has curtailed his American trip, leaving Hans behind, to make it to the opening, where he duly meets Isabelle and sparks fly. The scene is set for a bittersweet love story about fate and second chances, until we discover the date: the 11th of September, 2001.

The 9/11 attacks and their effect on the American psyche have been much discussed and analysed, either directly or obliquely, in a multitude of films and TV shows since. But the international slant here feels like territory less well-traveled, as the infamous imagery of burning towers, falling figures and ash-covered passersby unfolds on television screens in Berlin apartments and in newspapers read in European sidewalk cafes. For Jacob and Isabelle, the shock of the attack is real but remote, until the revelation that Hans is among the dead.

In a slipstream of grief and guilt, with an oddly understandable urge to atone by living out Hans’ life rather than his own, Jacob decides to take Hans’ London job, and proposes to Isabelle. At an impasse in her own creative life and shaken on a less personal but no less profound level by the Iraq War era of uncertainty, she accepts. They move to London, to a flat with a dodgy door and downstairs neighbors who are volubly abusive toward their little girl. Their increasing alienation from each other leads Isabelle into an unlikely relationship with volatile junkie and small-time dealer Jim (Guy Burnet), while Jacob works long days on a tricky case and begins to hallucinate Hans in the faces of strangers.

Hans’ death is clearly the crux of the story, though Hoffmeister’s film would arguably have been stronger without that further twist of the knife.

Along with his lead actors, he makes a fine job of evoking the sense of dissociation, the generalized loss of stability felt by those who were on the verge of the most defining period of their lives when 9/11 happened. We see clever, subtle connections between the micro — the irrational behavioral impulses that Jacob and Isabelle display — and the macro socio-political situation. This valuable point might have been better made had Jacob had no direct connection to the 9/11 attacks — had the couple’s grief been, as it was for so many millions, more helplessly theoretical than pointedly personal.

This news has been read 5200 times!