A2 C1SB American film since 2005: CF & Selma

Question 1

What is Ben Cash’s wife called?

Answer 1

Lesley

Question 2

Name the Kids!

Answer 2

Bodevan aka Bo, the eldest son
Twin daughters Vespyr and Kielyr.
Rellian, the middle son.
Zaja, the youngest daughter
Nai, the youngest boy.

Question 3

What are Lesley’s parents called?

Answer 3

Abigail & Jack

Question 4

What are the names of Ben’s sister Harper’s family

Answer 4

Harper, Dave, Jackson and Justin.

Question 5

What is the bus called?

Answer 5

Steve

Question 6

What is the name of the famous critical thinker who’s birthday is celebrated instead of Christmas?

Answer 6

Noam Chomsky
FUN FACT: Matt Ross said a team member contacted Noam Chomsky to clear his quotes for use in the film. “The way he responded was indicative of the human being that he is: no lawyers, just ‘please quote me correctly.’”

Question 7

Whereabouts in America do the Cash family live?

Answer 7

Washington State, in the Pacific North West.
FUN FACT: The outdoor scenes at the beginning are from the North Cascades in Whatcom County, northern Washington state. The prominent glaciated peak behind the family meditation scene is Mt. Shuksan, east of Mt. Baker.

Question 8

Where do Abigail and Jack live?

Answer 8

New Mexico - it’s around 1500 miles from Washington State.

Question 9

Name the photographer who inspired director Matt Ross to film Captain Fantastic the way he did.

Answer 9

Simeon Johan

Question 10

What was Lesley’s favourite song?

Answer 10

Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns n Roses.
FUN FACT: In the original screenplay they were supposed to perform “When Doves Cry” by Prince.

Question 11

What’s the strange language that the twins speak to each other on the bus?

Answer 11

Esperanto - an artificial language devised in 1887 as an international medium of communication, based on roots from the chief European languages.
Often seen as a language of oppressed peoples, Esperanto faced formidable opponents during World War II in both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Hitler had written in Mein Kampf that Esperanto was a language being used by Jews as a method of world domination, and it was stamped during the Third Reich and in the Soviet Union.
The twins speak Esperanto to each other over Ben’s objections. When they yell back at him, the translation is, “It’s not our fault that you can’t speak Esperanto.”

Question 12

What’s the significance of Ben’s red suit?

Answer 12

It is his wedding suit from when he married Lesley. We see it briefly in a wedding photograph, in a scene in the family yurt.
Also, in the last scenes Viggo Mortensen’s character is wearing a t-shirt that reads “Jesse Jackson 88”. Jesse Jackson is an American civil rights activist and politician, who ran for president with the Democratic Party in 1984 and 1988.
This is interesting
https://www.16-9.dk/2022/08/captain-fantastic/

Question 13

What book is Kielyr reading on the bus?

Answer 13

Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita”.
FUN FACT Frank Langella (Jack) was in the 1997 film adaptation of the book.
Matt Ross has said that Kielyr’s summary of Lolita is meant to mirror the audience’s view of Ben.

Question 14

The Cash family are told not to make fun of anyone, except….?

Answer 14

Christians
The family pretend to be Evangelical and enthusiastically sing a hymn in order to get rid of the policeman who stops the bus.

Question 15

What does ben call his wife Lesley, during the second funeral?

Answer 15

My Little Bird

Question 16

Name the director of Selma, and one other film they have made.

Answer 16

Ava DuVernay
When They See Us; 13th; Origin; A Wrinkle In Time; Colin in Black & White.

Question 17

Name Dr Martin Luther King’s wife

Answer 17

Coretta Scott King

Question 18

What is the name of the woman (played by Oprah Winfrey) who tries to register to vote at the start of the film?

Answer 18

Annie Lee Cooper

Question 19

What is the name of the young man (played by LaKeith Stansfield) who is shot dead by a police officer after the silent march?

Answer 19

Jimmie Lee Jackson

Question 20

Name the POTUS!

Answer 20

Lyndon B Johnson - he achieved the presidency after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, having previously served as the Vice President.

Question 21

Who was James Reeb (Jeremy Strong)?

Answer 21

Reverend James Reeb was a social worker, Unitarian Universalist minister, and father of four — was severely beaten by a group of white men in Selma on March 9, 1965 and died two days later on March 11.

Question 22

Name the Governor of Alabama

Answer 22

George C Wallace

Question 23

Name the Sherriff of Dallas County

Answer 23

Jim Clark
Clark vocally opposed racial integration, wearing a button reading “Never” [integrate].He wore military style clothing and carried a cattle prod in addition to his pistol and club.

Question 24

What is significant about Selma?

Answer 24

Selma is the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama. On March 7, 1965, hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched three times to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible. Their actions - and those of the State Troopers on Bloody Sunday during the first march - became a landmark in the American civil rights movement and directly led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Question 25

What is significant about the casting of MLK, LBJ and George C Wallace?

Answer 25

They were all British actors:
David Oyelowo
Tom Wilkinson (RIP)
Tim Roth

Question 26

Name the Selma-based student organisation which had been campaigning for black voting rights prior to Dr. King arriving.

Answer 26

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It’s two main organisers were John Lewis and James Foreman.
King’s organisation was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Question 27

Which horrific event from September 1963 does Selma depict early in the film?

Answer 27

Four black girls walking down stairs in the Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church were killed by a bomb set by white supremacist organisation, the Ku Klux Klan. Their names:
Addie Mae Collins
Cynthia Wesley
Carole Robertson
Carol Denise McNair
The murders were intercut with King accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, which actually happened in December 1964. This was one of a number of instances of dramatic license taken by DuVernay.

Question 28

Name the bridge the marchers cross.

Answer 28

Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a lawyer and politician who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1897 to 1907. He served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding infantry in the American Civil War. After the war, he was Grand Dragon, (Supreme Leader) of the Ku Klux Klan, that terrorized and often killed African-Americans.