Analysis Of The Film 13th, By Ava Duvernay

The documentary 13th directed by Ava DuVernay and was the first ever documentary to open the New York Film Festival in 2016. DuVernay is a two-time academy award nominee for her films Selma - Best Picture and 13th - Best Documentary Feature (Time). She grew up in Compton California in the 1980s and 1990s where she saw a heavy police presence which she said was terrifying. She recalls seeing her father wrestled to the ground in his own back yard because he met the description of a man “running around town” even though he had been at home all day (13th: A Conversation with Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay). DuVernay said, “I’d see a cop and I didn’t think safety, like my counterpart who didn’t grow up in Compton. I’d think, “Oh boy, what are they

The film is a densely packed, well researched focusing on mass incarceration and how the American incarceration system has evolved to its current state. Chalk full of statistics like “The United States is home to 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world’s prisoners” (DuVernay). Along with statistics, 13th’s imagery is haunting and a perfect blend of thought provoking speakers and curated footage to

When deciding the format of her documentary, DuVernay opted to cram the information into a 100-minute feature length film rather than a six-episode docuseries similar to a Ken Burns piece. Claiming that Netflix offered her any number of resources to create her work, she chose to be dense and short to capture the attention of viewers in a time frame that is easily digestible. This format was divisive among critics. DuVernay covers a 150-year time line in the first half of the film from the Civil Rights act to present day traveling “deep into history, connecting every link in the chain to reveal how we got here” (Gleiberman). In moving at such a break neck pace, the film is not able to cover many of the factors that attribute to mass incarceration, instead DuVernay focuses her attention on what she feels is most relevant. Dan Berger from Black Perspectives writes in “Mass incarceration and Its Mystification: A Review of The 13th” that the film glosses over some sociological issues. He claims that the film does not adequately “discuss the policies that gave greater power to police, prosecutors, and prisons in those critical years” (Berger) after the enactment of the 1994 Crime Bill. He further argues that DuVernay’s focus on the civil rights and Black Power movements are small – though significant – pieces of the puzzle that is mass incarceration. More over Armond White of the National Review argues in his article “The 13th