''The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till'' is a 2005 documentary film about the murder of

Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African American youth, who was 14 years old when he was abducted and Lynching in the United States, lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, ...

. It was directed by Keith Beauchamp. The film contributed to the case being reopened by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Background

In August 1955, 14-year-old African American

was murdered for whistling at a white woman at a store in

Money, Mississippi Money is an unincorporated community near Greenwood in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. It has fewer than 100 residents, down from 400 in the early 1950s when a cotton mill operated there. Money is located o ...

. The woman's relatives kidnapped Till and murdered him, leaving his body in a river. Till's mother held an open-casket funeral for her son to the public to demonstrate the brutality of racism in the Southern United States. The accused murderers were acquitted despite large amounts of evidence for their involvement in the murder.

Production

In 1996, Beauchamp began investigating the crime as part of a planned documentary feature. His research and work conducting interviews for the film took over nine years, and ultimately contributed to the case being reopened by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. ''The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till'' was the first film to investigate the murder and was the second film to be released about it, after '' The Murder of Emmett Till'' aired on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Plot

The film examines the circumstances surrounding the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, and claims that fourteen people were involved. This number included five black employees of the five white men implicated in the murder, "as well as the woman that Till whistled at". The film is interspersed with interviews, as well as television and news video that includes the men who were accused of the murder. Beauchamp interviews multiple eyewitnesses who were previously scared of retaliation. Beauchamp interviewed Emmett's cousins who were at the house during the kidnapping. The film has the victim's mother,

Mamie Till Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley (born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan; November 23, 1921 – January 6, 2003) was an American educator and activist in the Civil rights movement who was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old youth murdered in Mississippi ...

, reminisce about her son's life and his murder.

Home media

The film was released on DVD by

ThinkFilm ThinkFilm (stylized as TH!NKFilm) was an American film distribution company founded in September 2001. It had been a division of David Bergstein’s Capitol Films since 2006. On October 5, 2010, five of Bergstein's companies in the film indust ...

in 2005. The DVD includes an audio commentary by the director and a theatrical trailer.

Reception

Ronnie Scheib of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' wrote, "Beauchamp expertly excerpts long stretches from the extensive television coverage of the 1955 events, juxtaposing them with present-day interviews with the people who lived though these traumatic happenings." Kam Williams of ''BlackFilm'' said, "Now, filmmaker Keith Beauchamp has successfully embarrassed the Feds into re-opening the case. ..in researching and conducting interviews for his damning documentary, ''The Untold Story of Emmett Till''." Neely Tucker of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' said, "That is what is known as poetry, and it is frustrating the documentary doesn't have more of it. For a movie that bills itself as "untold," there's no "gee-whiz" moment of revelation. There are many fine interviews, apparently some of them new, but there is no narration to tell us which ones." The film won the

National Board of Review The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered the first major harbinger of the film awards season that ...

Award in 2005 for Special Recognition of Films That Reflect Freedom of Expression.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, The 2005 documentary films Documentary films about racism in the United States Documentary films about crime in the United States Emmett Till Documentary films about Mississippi