Free The Butler: A Witness to History by Wil Haygood Page B

butler, he told me. “It wasn’t going to be about the noble white man helping the oppressed. This was going to be a story about a black butler and about black kids fighting back in the movement. This was something they did themselves, forcing the presidents to come along with them.”
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    I ARRIVED IN New Orleans a few days before filming on The Butler began. After our first chat while I had been in Tennessee, I had first satdown in person with Laura Ziskin and Pam Williams in Washington, DC. Following that, there were also long sessions spent with screenwriter Danny Strong as we visited and talked to real-life butler Eugene Allen. But this was my first visit on the set. It was heartening to sit with the actors, actresses, and other creative people working on The Butler and listen to them talk so passionately about why they wanted to work on the film. “They represent the whole black middle class that nobody knew about,” Oprah Winfrey said to me one afternoon about the butler and his wife. “It’s such a beautiful story.”
    Everyone associated with the movie was jubilant when Forest Whitaker signed on to play the butler. “My career just wasn’t going in the right direction,” Whitaker said to me the day before filming got under way. The words sounded a bit jarring coming from the best actor Oscar winner for his galvanizing portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. (Far too many of his movies of late—though Whitaker did not allude to it—have had excruciatingly brief runs in theaters before going to video.) He says how gratified he was when offered the part of the butler: “It’s one of the most complicated roles I’ve ever played.” The complexities, he says, stem from the fact that the butler goes from segregation to integration, from president to president, and from decade to decade—in addition to being a father and husband during tumultuous times in American history. “I hope I can meet the challenge” of the role, he said. Whitaker hired a professional butler to teach himthe intricacies of the job. (I noticed, on the first day when Whitaker filmed a scene, that he had masterfully adapted Eugene Allen’s soft southern accent.)
    The role of the butler’s son, Louis, is played by the British actor David Oyelowo, who has received acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic but has yet to play that so-called breakout role. Shortly after filming got under way, there was a collective feeling on the set that this might indeed be his chance. He was both magnetic and fierce as the rebellious son of the butler. “It feels divine to be here,” he said during lunch one late afternoon during a break in filming. The arc of the film itself—a butler’s journey through the White House—had Oyelowo recalling other movies that had claimed the public’s attention at one time. “It has elements of Forrest Gump and Gone with the Wind, ” he said. “This film pays homage to the foot soldiers.” He was well aware of the arduous journey to get the film into production. “It takes the power of people like Lee Daniels and Oprah Winfrey—and this plethora of stars—to get a film like this made,” he allowed. Before he landed his part in The Butler, Oyelowo was on a roll with appearances in both The Help and Spielberg’s Lincoln, which had not yet been released while he was in New Orleans. “This film is about the butler and his family. There is no white savior.”
    Much has been made about the actors who wanted to work on the film, but those behind the scenes were just as interested in the project. The Butler coverstime across nine decades and many presidential administrations. (Even though the real-life Eugene Allen worked for eight administrations, the movie only covers five of them.) Such a movie is often referred to as a “period” film and it requires a great deal of historical research. Artists, craftsmen, and designers will work months ahead of filming, coalescing their ideas and suggestions