Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till(2012)

There have been numerous treatments, in various media, of the horrific 1955 murder in Money, Mississippi, of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till, but none like this concise, stunning dramatization in which actor-writer Mike Wiley plays all 36 roles--black, white, male, female, young, and old. What might sound like a distracting stunt is in fact the film’s distinctive strength. Relying on subtleties of acting rather than heavy makeup, with seamless digital compositing in multi-character scenes, Wiley’s tour de force defamiliarizes the material with startling effectiveness and compels us to get under the skins of all the major players in the tragic events. (Gene Siskel Film Center)