Underground Railroad : How Slave Catchers Tracked Down Escapees
On 5/14/21 at 12:03 PM EDT
Barry Jenkins highly anticipated new series
The Underground Railroad premieres on Amazon Prime Video today, telling the story of an enslaved woman s bid for freedom.
South African actress Thuso Mbedu plays protagonist Cora Randall, who is pursued by villainous slave catcher Arnold Ridgeway (played by Joel Edgerton).
Slave catchers were a real thing and, in the deep South, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 made catching escapees a lucrative endeavor.
How Enslaved People Used Underground Railroad to Escape From the South
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According to information from the Law Enforcement Museum, slave patrols are described as an early form of American policing. They were established in South Carolina in 1704.
The inhumanity of slavery stains every frame of The Underground Railroad on Amazon Prime Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
“The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins’ realization of Colson Whitehead’s novel, a limited series that is, well, great.
But not perfect. Even a filmmaker as gifted as Jenkins falls prey to the temptations of the lack of limits prestige cable offers. The 10-episode series, which streams on Amazon Prime Video beginning May 14, easily could have been trimmed. But the narrative gets away from Jenkins a little, especially in the middle when the focus shifts away from the enslaved woman trying to escape to the man trying to catch her. It s needed to tell the story, but goes too far down that path.
‘The Underground Railroad’: TV Review Daniel Fienberg
With his Amazon adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s prize-winning novel
The Underground Railroad,
Moonlight director Barry Jenkins walks confidently, if perhaps unintentionally, into the ongoing debate about Black-created/led movies and TV shows that center Black trauma. That debate has reached a fever pitch in recent months with small-screen offerings like
Late in this
Underground Railroad, a character approaches a roving poet with a simple and sad request: “If I gave you my sorrows, would you make them sound pretty?”
Directing all 10 installments, most running over an hour, Jenkins indeed makes a wide range of sadness beautiful, doing the same for strains of trauma and rays of joyful light. By nature of its subject matter,