| The Butler | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Lee Daniels |
| Written by | Danny Strong |
| Based on | "A Butler Well Served By This Election" byWil Haygood |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Andrew Dunn |
| Edited by | Joe Klotz |
| Music by | Rodrigo Leão |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | The Weinstein Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 133 minutes[1][2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $177.3 million[2] |
The Butler (full titleLee Daniels' The Butler)[4][5] is a 2013 Americanhistoricaldrama film directed and co-produced byLee Daniels and written byDanny Strong.[6] It is inspired byWil Haygood'sWashington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election".
Loosely based on the real life ofEugene Allen, who worked in theWhite House for decades, the film starsForest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, anAfrican American who is a witness of notable political and social events of the 20th century during his 34-year tenure serving as a White Housebutler.[7][8] In addition to Whitaker, the film'sensemble cast featuresOprah Winfrey,Mariah Carey,John Cusack,Nelsan Ellis,Jane Fonda,Cuba Gooding Jr.,Terrence Howard,Minka Kelly,Elijah Kelley,Lenny Kravitz,James Marsden,David Oyelowo,Alex Pettyfer,Vanessa Redgrave,Alan Rickman,Liev Schreiber,Robin Williams andClarence Williams III. It was the last film produced byLaura Ziskin,[9][10] who died on June 12, 2011. It was also the final film appearance of Clarence Williams III, who retired from acting in 2018 and died on June 4, 2021.
The film was theatrically released bythe Weinstein Company on August 16, 2013, to mostly positive reviews from critics, with many praising the cast but criticizing the historical accuracy.[11][12] The film was a commercial success, grossing more than $177 million worldwide against a budget of $30 million.[13]
In 2009, an elderly Cecil Gainesrecounts his life story while waiting at theWhite House to meet the newly inaugurated president. Cecil was born and raised on acotton plantation inMacon,Georgia to Blacksharecroppers during theJim Crow era. In 1926, when Cecil was seven, the white landowner, Thomas Westfall, rapes Cecil'smulatto mother, Hattie. Cecil's father, Earl, confronts Thomas and is killed. Cecil is taken in by Thomas' elderly mother, Annabeth, who is also the estate's matron. Annabeth trains Cecil to be a house servant.
In 1937, at age 18, Cecil leaves the plantation. Desperately hungry, he breaks into a hotel pastry shop. The elderly master-servant Maynard takes pity on him and gives him a job. Cecil learns advanced serving and interpersonal skills from Maynard, who later recommends Cecil for a position in aWashington, D.C., hotel. While working there, Cecil meets and marries Gloria, and the couple have two sons, Louis and Charlie.
In 1957, Cecil is hired by theWhite House duringDwight D. Eisenhower's administration. White Housemaître d'hôtel Freddie Fallows introduces him to head butler Carter Wilson and co-worker James Holloway. Cecil witnesses Eisenhower's reluctance to use troops to enforceschool desegregation, then his resolve to uphold the law byracially integratingLittle Rock Central High School inArkansas.
Louis, the Gaineses' elder son, becomes a university student atFisk University inNashville,Tennessee, although Cecil feels that theSouth is too volatile. Louis joins theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), activistJames Lawson's student program, which leads to anonviolentsit-in at asegregated diner, where he is arrested. Gloria, who feels that Cecil puts his job ahead of her, descends intoalcoholism.
In 1961, afterJohn F. Kennedy's inauguration, Louis andothers are attacked by members of theKu Klux Klan while on afreedom ride toBirmingham,Alabama. Louis participates in the 1963Birmingham Children's Crusade, where dogs and water cannons are used to stop the marchers, an action that inspires Kennedy to delivera national address proposing theCivil Rights Act of 1964.
After Kennedy isassassinated, his successor,Lyndon B. Johnson, enacts the legislation. As a goodwill gesture,Jackie Kennedy gives Cecil one of the former president'sneckties.
Louis participates in the 1965Selma Voting Rights Movement, which inspires Johnson to demand thatCongress enact the landmarkVoting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson also gives Cecil atie bar.
In the late 1960s, after civil rights activistMartin Luther King Jr.'sassassination, Louis tells his family that he has joined theBlack Panthers. Cecil orders Louis and his girlfriend to leave his house. Louis is again arrested. Cecil becomes aware of PresidentRichard Nixon's plans to suppress the Black Panthers.
Charlie confides to Louis that he plans to join thewar in Vietnam. After enlisting, he is killed and buried atArlington National Cemetery. When the Black Panthers resort to violence, Louis leaves the organization and returns to college, earning hismaster's degree inpolitical science and eventually running for a seat in Congress, although Cecil continues to resent him.
Cecil repeatedly approaches his White supervisor at the White House over the unequal pay and career advancement provided to the Black White House staff. With PresidentRonald Reagan's support, Cecil prevails, his reputation growing to the point that he and his wife are invited by the Reagans to be guests at a state dinner. Cecil becomes uncomfortable with the class divisions in the White House. After witnessing Reagan's refusal to supporteconomic sanctions againstSouth Africa forapartheid, he resigns.
Gloria encourages Cecil to mend his relationship with Louis. Realizing that his son's actions are heroic, he joins him at a protest against South African apartheid; they are arrested and jailed together.
In 2008, Gloria dies shortly beforeBarack Obamais elected as the nation's first Black president. Two months, two weeks and one day later, Cecil prepares to meet the newlyinaugurated President, wearing the articles that he received from Kennedy and Johnson. White House Chief UsherStephen W. Rochon approaches him, telling him that the president is ready and preparing to show him the way to theOval Office. Cecil tells him that he knows the way and walks down the hall to the office.
PresidentsGerald Ford,Jimmy Carter,Barack Obama and civil rights leaderJesse Jackson are depicted inarchival footage.[21][22]
Melissa Leo and Orlando Eric Street were cast as First LadyMamie Eisenhower and Barack Obama, respectively, but did not appear in the finished film.[6][23][24][25]
Danny Strong's screenplay is inspired by Wil Haygood'sWashington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election".[26][27] The project received initial backing in early 2011 when producers Laura Ziskin and Pam Williams approachedSheila Johnson for help financing the film. After reading Danny Strong's screenplay, Johnson invested $2.7 million before bringing in several African American investors. However, Ziskin died from cancer in June 2011. This left director Daniels and producing partner Hilary Shor to look further for producers. They started withCassian Elwes, with whom they were working onThe Paperboy. Elwes joined the list of producers and began fundraising for the film.
In spring 2012, AI Film, a British financing and production company, added a $6 million guarantee against foreign pre-sales. Finally, the film raised its requisite $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 fundraising as an independent film "a story that's a movie within itself".[3]
The Weinstein Company acquired the distribution rights for the film afterColumbia Pictures put the film inturnaround.[28][29]
The film's title was up for a possible renaming due to aMotion Picture Association claim fromWarner Bros., which had inherited from the defunct Lubin Company a now-lost 1916 silent short film with the same name.[9][30] The case was subsequently resolved with the MPAA granting The Weinstein Company permission to add Lee Daniels in front of the title, under the condition that his name was "75% the size ofThe Butler".[31] On July 23, 2013, the distributor unveiled a revised poster, displaying the title asLee Daniels' The Butler.[32]
Principal photography started in June 2012 inNew Orleans. Interior White House scenes were shot at Second Line Stages. Production was originally scheduled to wrap in early August 2012 but was delayed by the impact ofHurricane Isaac.[33]
In its opening weekend, the film debuted in first place, with $24.6 million.[34][35] The film topped the North American box office in its first three consecutive weeks.[36][37] The film has grossed $116.6 million in Canada and the United States, and it earned $60.7 million elsewhere, for a total of $177.3 million.[2]
The Butler received generally positive reviews from critics. OnRotten Tomatoes, it has a 71% rating, based on 199 reviews, with an average score of 6.60/10. The site's consensus says: "Gut-wrenching and emotionally affecting,Lee Daniels' The Butler overcomes an uneven narrative thanks to strong performances from an all-star cast."[38] OnMetacritic, it has aweighted average score of 65 based on 47 reviews, indicating "generally positive" reviews.[39] Audiences surveyed byCinemaScore gave the film an "A" on a scale of A+ to F.[40]
Todd McCarthy ofThe Hollywood Reporter 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."[41]
Richard Roeper lauded the film's casting, remarking that "Forest Whitaker gives the performance of his career".[42]
Rolling Stone also spoke highly of Whitaker, writing that his "reflective, powerfully understated performance...fills this flawed film with potency and purpose".[21]
Variety wrote that "Daniels develops a strong sense of the inner complexities and contradictions of the civil-rights landscape".[43]
USA Today gave the film three stars out of four, and noted, "It's inspiring and filled with fine performances, but the insistently swelling musical score and melodramatic moments seem calculated and undercut a powerful story".[44]
Miles Davis of theNew York Tribune gave the film a negative review, claiming it to be "Oscar bait", a cliché film designed to attract Oscar nominations.[45]
Kenneth Turan of theLos 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."[46] Several critics compared the film's historical anecdotes and sentimentality toForrest Gump.[47][48][49][50]
PresidentBarack 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 ofJim Crow and because ofdiscrimination, there was only so far they could go."[51]
Regarding historical accuracy, Eliana Dockterman wrote inTime: "Allen was born on aVirginia plantation in 1919, not in Georgia.... In the movie, Cecil' Gaines grows up on a cotton field in Macon, where his family comes into conflict with the white farmers for whom they work. What befalls his parents on the cotton field wasadded for dramatic effect.... Though tension between father and son over civil rights issues fuels most of the drama in the film, [Eugene Allen's son] Charles Allen was not the radical political activist that Gaines's son is in the movie."[54]
The film also excludedBilly Graham from Eisenhower's meeting regarding the sending of troops to Arkansas to aid theLittle Rock Nine. By 1992,Christian Century acknowledged that Graham in fact had a vital role in persuading Eisenhower's to go along with this decision.[55][56]
The film also falsely portrayedLyndon Johnson as initially being reluctant to support theSelma Movement. A phone conservation which Johnson had with Martin Luther King Jr. on January 15, 1965 in fact showed that King in fact privately conspired with Johnson, and how Johnson sought to use the Movement to advance the Voting Right Act and other legislation through Congress.[57]
Particular criticism has been directed at the film accuracy in portraying PresidentRonald Reagan. While Alan Rickman's performance generated positive reviews, conservative activists criticized the director and screenwriters of the film for depicting Reagan as indifferent to civil rights and his reluctance to associate with the White House's Black employees during his presidency. According toMichael Reagan, the former president's son and a conservative activist, "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."[58][59]
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." Regarding the president's initial opposition to sanctions againstapartheid 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 aMarxist-totalitarian regime allied withMoscow andCuba that would take the South African people down the same road asEthiopia,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, wentCommunist. It was devastating. If the film refuses to deal with this issue with the necessary balance, it shouldn't deal with it at all."[60]
time1993 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
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