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Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780790732060 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC ISBN: 0790732068 Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: January 27, 1998 Running Time: 140 minutes Sales Rank: 16908 Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: February 21, 1997
Amazon.com: A shameful chapter in American history is powerfully dramatized in Rosewood, but moviegoers in 1997 may not have been ready for the African American equivalent of Schindler's List. And while the massacre that occurred in the nearly all-black town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1922 cannot compare in scale to the Nazi holocaust, it potently illustrates the same issues of racism and inherited intolerance that percolate at every level of human existence. An estimated 40 to 150 blacks were killed in Rosewood by an all-white lynch mob from the neighboring town of Sumner, where a white woman falsely claimed she'd been assaulted by a black man. The resulting mayhem ignited a tinderbox of resentment toward the flourishing citizens of Rosewood, and those few who survived were so traumatized that they remained silent until the truth was revealed by an investigative journalist in 1982.
The film is blessed with richly authentic production design, lush cinematography, and a subtly effective John Williams score, and director John Singleton and screenwriter Gregory Poirier embellish the truth of Rosewood with a fictional hero named Mann (Ving Rhames), who arrives to buy a five-acre plot coveted by Rosewood's white grocer (John Voight). The emerging trust between these two characters--and the fate of an extended family led by a defiant father (Don Cheadle)--gives shape to the movie's devastating depiction of racism and the courage of those who opposed the lynch mob's brutality. Singleton and Poirier fall prey to some bad dialogue and a broadly unbalanced depiction of bloodthirsty hayseeds, but the film's passion is maintained by its superb cast and the timeless echoes of history. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Too Painful to Watch Alone...
... despite the mitigation of a Hollywood love story and a fictitious super-hero, but still not as painful as the TRUTH, the true and well-documented story of an ethnic cleansing in Florida in 1923, when, over several days, European-American mobs attacked the peaceful and prosperous African-American village of Rosewood, in Levy County. During the attack, survivors estimated, as many as eighteen African-Americans and two European-Americans were. Most of the buildings, including churches and a school, were burned. The community was abandoned and, in spite of permanent loss of land and homes, the ... Read More
Rating: - Rosewood
Sad but pretty close to the truth. I really don't know what else to say. It's our Country's Sad History. People still use the N word freely. This explains why so many of us take offense, even when our own use it. Boy, even at 50 and respected by his own, a grown man is referred to as Boy. Some folks just don't understand why some of us are still angry. Anger is an action word. Without feeling it, things just don't get done. It's as strong as Determination. I love my black brothers, excuse me, Black Men. Their fight is harder than any other race. If they climb too high, either his own ... Read More
Rating: - Heavy, but great movie.
This movie has a great story to tell, one that all should see, so that it will never happen again.
Item and described, with prompt shipping.
Rating: - only got to see half
I purchased this dvd abouth a month ago. I went to finally watch it this weekend. I only got to watch half of it, due to the fact of the movie stops 1hr and 10 minutes into it. I tried 3 different dvd players and the movie stopped 1hr and 10 minutes later. Needless to say i was very disappointed. From what I did see it is a very good movie. I can only give it 3 stars cause i didn't get to see the rest.
Rating: - Another film that is usually hard to watch
Director John Singleton, of "Boyz N the Hood" fame, does a top-notch job throughout this two and a half hour film of conveying the building and inevitable terror of what is to come, and of then sustaining that terror. Visually, he's a master storyteller. The trigger was a white woman, beaten black and blue by her lover. To explain the bruises to her husband, she claims that a black intruder worked her over. Never mind that her housekeepers saw perfectly well who did it. And that he wasn't black. Forget due process. In short order, strange fruit was hanging high and blood lust for more was in the ... Read More
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