A Killing That Shocked Britain

In the United Kingdom, Stephen Lawrence’s name is seared into the national consciousness in much the way that Rodney King’s or James Byrd’s names are here in the United States.

Lawrence, an 18-year-old black man, was stabbed to death by a gang of white teenagers while he waited for a bus in their southeast London neighborhood. The April 1993 attack fanned racial tensions, and the police were taken to task when the suspects walked free.

“The Murder of Stephen Lawrence,” a re-creation of that incident, has been widely seen in England and reaches American television tonight as a presentation of PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre” (9 p.m. on KCET and KVCR). Since the film was aimed at viewers familiar with the events, it allows numerous informational gaps that may frustrate U.S. watchers. What’s all too recognizable, however, is its depiction of prejudice left to simmer.

The movie is said to stick close to documented facts.

To make them come alive, writer-director Paul Greengrass adopts the common documentary technique of following his actors with hand-held cameras. The attack on Lawrence (Leon Black) is a shaky blur, as though the cameraman is also fleeing the assault. Subsequent scenes in the Lawrence household (headed by Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Hugh Quarshie as Stephen’s shellshocked parents) are awkwardly shot through doorways or over shoulders, and in some scenes, ambient noise all but drowns out what’s being said. Though it’s an artistically provocative approach, it further disorients viewers who don’t know the story.

Still, a couple of hours spent with this movie might be an appropriately reflective activity on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.