Editor’s Note: A day after this story aired and was published online, “Nickel Boys” was nominated for two Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay for RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, and Best Picture.
Director RaMell Ross has a reputation for sharing true stories from unique points of view. His Oscar-nominated 2018 documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” was praised for portraying ordinary events with captivating imagery.
His new film, “Nickel Boys,” is a pioneering feat of storytelling. Based on Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Ross engages audiences by using a first-person perspective for the entire film. Vacillating between the two main characters, we see the world exactly as they see it, and the result is powerful.
“Nickel Boys” is based on the cruel and true events that happened at Florida’s Dozier School for Boys during the time of Jim Crow, and it is a heartbreaking and traumatic story both in print and on the screen. When “City Lights” managing producer Kim Drobes recently spoke with director and co-screenplay writer RaMell Ross, he explained the unusual way that he tends to discuss the film.
“The way a story is told is as important as the story itself,” Ross explained. By attaching the camera to the characters’ point of view, the audience experiences their world directly, creating an unprecedented sense of empathy. “It’s about using the camera as an extension of consciousness,” he added. Ross calls this point of view a “sentient perspective.”
