42 (2013) | 100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #143

The Guts Not to Fight Back. Directed by Brian Helgeland. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, and Nicole Beharie.

Aside from the Founding Fathers, American culture’s two main sources of secular saints are the Civil Rights movement and baseball. One man’s story sits at the intersection of those two pillars of the twentieth century American imagination: Jackie Robinson. The breaking of baseball’s color barrier in 1947 was one of the most pivotal cultural moments that allowed the political movement of the 1960s to succeed. Jackie Robinson proved that skin color was irrelevant in baseball, that talent and character can overcome prejudice, and that faith and courage in adversity can move mountains. Robinson was a man of deep faith and integrity, and he proved that on and off the diamond in a way that normal, Christian Americans couldn’t ignore. In my opinion, Robinson was as integral to the success of the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther King, Jr. and deserves all the accolades and celebration he receives and more.¹

Given his cultural importance, it was almost a given that Jackie Robinson’s story would get a cinematic portrayal, and in fact it only took three years from his historic rookie year in 1947 for him to make it to the silver screen in The Jackie Robinson Story. This film is of interest to baseball fans because Jackie plays himself in the film, at the height of his career, giving the project a rare authenticity. However, it’s not a very good film overall, with little cinematic flair other than the bizarre choice to undercrank the shots of Jackie running around the bases so he seems to run at a cartoonish speed in the film. Was this really necessary when filming the man who was already the fastest man in baseball?

I digress. The far better adaptation of Robinson’s story came in 2013 with the release of 42, starring Chadwick Boseman (requiescat in pace) as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford as Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey. 42 gives Robinson the dramatic treatment he deserves, a full cinematic hagiography. Boseman’s performance is especially electric, capturing Jackie’s spirit, integrity, courage, but also his flaws: a quick temper, some arrogance, a tendency to show off at times. This central performance is what makes the movie: bad hagiography portrays a protagonist without flaws, a saint from the beginning whose only struggle is against the evil forces conspiring against him. Good hagiography shows our hero fight and win enemies both internal and external; indeed, his conquest of his flaws is what enables him to vanquish his foes. Boseman perfectly portrays the inner struggle in Robinson’s life, the righteous rage against injustice that Robinson must control in order to overcome. It’s written on his face, in his body language, and into the very soul of the film, elevating what could have been a rote, stale retelling into a cinematic jewel.²

I would be remiss if I did not pair Boseman’s excellent performance with Harrison Ford’s Branch Rickey. The two stories are inseparably entwined, with Rickey functioning almost as a second protagonist instead of a side character. This is perhaps Ford’s strongest late-career performance, filled with subtlety and strength. Rickey is a man of many motivations. As a businessman, he wants to make money; bringing Jackie to the team will earn him the business of African Americans, and dollars, as he points out, are neither black nor white but green. As a baseball man, he wants to win the pennant; black ballplayers are a criminally overlooked talent pool and by bringing Robinson to the team the Dodgers have a chance to win the World Series. Both of these motivations are made explicit and used by Rickey to justify his decision to allies and enemies alike.

However, there is something deeper at play here, and Ford’s performance does a marvelous job at portraying the depth even when shallower explanations are being expressed. Branch Rickey was a deeply Christian man, formed by his faith into a deep opposition to injustice. I had forgotten how explicitly Christian Rickey’s motivations were in this film, but on rewatch I greatly appreciated that 42 did not gloss over or downplay the importance of Christianity in this momentous event. Rickey is looking for someone who has a great depth of character, someone whose faith will help restrain his baser tendencies and prove the worth of his whole swath of humanity to white America. He picks Jackie Robinson to be the man to break the color barrier partly because of their shared Methodist faith.³ Rickey knows that Robinson’s faith will be a crucial part of the success of this mission, appealing to Christ’s teaching to turn the other cheek in a pivotal scene. When Rickey tries to goad him into anger, asking what he’ll do when he is the target of incredible abuse and reviling for daring to play baseball with white men, Jackie asks if Rickey is looking for a coward, for someone without the guts to fight back. Rickey responds: “No….no. I want a player who’s got the guts not to fight back.” This response is deeply rooted in Rickey’s Christian faith, and it’s the heart of the film. Both Boseman and Ford give incredible performances that show the depth of their conviction and hatred of injustice layered under an outer peace and gentleness that together moved a nation one step further away from prejudice. American politics, on both the left and the right, seems to have forgotten the deeply held Christian faith of most of the participants in the Civil Rights movement and how it was that faith that overcame injustice and paved the way for greater peace. This movie retains that, and I applaud it for doing so.

42 is an excellent film, giving us a story with deep integrity, heroism, and good baseball. Jackie Robinson is one of those real life heroes who give us an example of integrity and courage in the face of incredible pressure, countering the doomer mentality so prevalent in our postmodern world. The film allows Robinson’s story to speak through grace, humor, and excellent performances from its central cast, cementing this American myth in the minds of a new generation. Would that all the racial-political movies of the 2010s focused on such integrity instead of grievance! But instead of lamenting the bad, I wish to celebrate the good, and 42 is one of the best. Break this film out every Jackie Robinson day and remember this story of integrity, courage, and faith. Black, white, yellow, or striped like a zebra, Jackie Robinson’s story can be an inspiration to us all.

1. Every attempt since then to recapture Jackie’s historic achievement have rung hollow. “The first black…”; “the first woman….”; “the first black woman…”: none of these have the same impact or cultural purpose as Jackie Robinson precisely because Jackie paved the way for them, taking the slings and arrows and neutralizing the hatred. At this point, being the first minority to do something isn’t a matter of courage; it’s a matter of time.

2. The filmmakers also made the laudable choice to dramatize only the 1947 season instead of the whole of Jackie’s life, avoiding one of the cardinal sins of bad biopics.

3. I feel I must correct some heresy here, as Rickey claims that “God is a Methodist”. God is, of course, a Catholic. Specifically a Dominican.