How ‘Nickel Boys’ Became One of the Year’s Most Visually Striking Films

When the filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross first read “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Black boys in a dangerous reform school in the 1960s, he couldn’t help but put himself in the shoes of its protagonists, Elwood and Turner.

In his film adaptation of the book, Ross does that to the audience: You see what the characters see, because it’s filmed from the main character’s point of view. “I wondered,” Ross said, “how do you explicitly film from the perspective of a Black person?”

It was an experiment that has paid off in critical acclaim. “Nickel Boys” has been nominated for two Academy Awards: best adapted screenplay and best picture.

In the first episode of our special series devoted to Oscar-nominated films adapted from books, host Gilbert Cruz talks with Ross about why he made the film this particular way.

 

Produced by Tina Antolini and Alex Barron

With Kate LoPresti

Edited by Wendy Dorr

Engineered by Sophia Lanman

Original music by Elisheba Ittoop

Hosted by Gilbert Cruz

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