Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett and Delroy Lindo in the Spike Lee movie ‘Malcolm X’

Directed by Spike Lee with the screenplay written by Lee and Arnold Perl based on the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley as written by Alex Haley, the movie Malcolm X (1992) is our subject today. An epic biographical drama of the life of Malcolm X, the movie Malcolm X became a part of the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress in 2010.

(From left, Spike Lee as Shorty, Denzel Washington as Malcolm X and Kate Vernon as Sophia in the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X).

The 1992 film Malcolm X begins illustrating the life of the civil rights activist of the same name in rural Michigan with the burning down of the family house. X‘s parents, Earl Little and Louise Little as portrayed by Tommy Hollis and Lonette McKee, are respectively killed in a death called suicide while being committed into a mental institution. Malcolm and his siblings are placed into protective care, with the ambitions of X as a grown man dashed based on the color of his skin.

(From left, Delroy Lindo as West Indian Archie and Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X).

From Boston, Massachusetts as a teenager, X has sex with Sophia as portrayed by Kate Vernon. The pair travels to Harlem, New York City, New York where West Indian Archie, as portrayed by Delroy Lindo, convinces Malcolm X to join the gangster’s criminal enterprise. As a disagreement ensues over money at the hands of West Indian Archie, Malcolm, Sophia, Shorty (as portrayed by Spike Lee), and Peg (as portrayed by Debi Mazar) take to robbery in Boston to earn money. This path leads to incarceration for four members of the group.

(From left, Ernest Thomas as Sidney, Denzel Washington as Malcolm X, Angela Bassett as Betty Shabazz and James McDaniel as Brother Earl in the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X).

Malcolm X is directed through mentorship by Baines, as portrayed by Albert Hall, to take up the teachings of Elijah Muhammad as portrayed by Al Freeman Jr. and learn the ways of Islam while also learning to resent the whites for their poor treatment of blacks. After being paroled in 1952, X meets Muhammad at the Nation of Islam (NOI) headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Six years later, marries Betty Shabazz as portrayed by Angela Bassett, with the pair parenting multiple children. X rises as a prominent speaker in the Nation of Islam, facing the reality that Muhammad had fathered many children out of wedlock and against the teachings of the faith.

(Al Freeman Jr. as Elijah Muhammad in the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X).

X rails against white violence in blaming the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy shortly after Kennedy‘s murder in November 1963. Muhammad suspends X from speaking on behalf of the Nation of Islam, whereupon Malcolm X takes a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, finding a desire to found the Organization of Afro-American Unity to spread tolerance rather than racial separation after making a formal break with the Nation of Islam. Shortly after his house was firebombed, Malcolm X would be shot in the Audubon Ballroom by Nation of Islam followers including Talmadge X Hayer as portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito.

(Giancarlo Esposito as Talmadge X Hayer in the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X).

The film closes with tributes to Malcolm X the man by Martin Luther King Jr., Ossie Davis and Nelson Mandela.  As quoted here, the Spike Lee “biopic of legendary civil rights leader Malcolm X brings his autobiography to life with an epic sweep and a nuanced message.” I grant the movie Malcolm X by director/screenwriter Spike Lee 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Tom Wolfe and the book ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’

Tom Wolfe‘s book The Bonfire of the Vanities offers a hard hitting, black comedy, satirical look at the power, money, influence, and race / ethnicity with Wall Street bond trader Sherman McCoy in the middle of decadence, depravity and the intersection that is Manhattan and the Bronx in New York City, New York.

(Tom Wolfe wrote the 1987 book The Bonfire of the Vanities, whose underlying use as referenced harkens to a burning of objects condemned by religious authorities in Florence, Italy in 1497).

The exploration of personal motivation underlies the true depth of the achievement that The Bonfire of the Vanities makes, as much of the true commentary offered through the book rests in Tom Wolfe‘s capacity for sharing the inner works of the characters in juxtaposition to the surface versions of one another that lives on the surface of things. That New York City, culturally, is placed under the microscope does for 1980’s America what F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby did with relation to America of the 1920’s. This is offered as high praise.

(Tom Wolfe books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), The Right Stuff (1979), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970) and The Painted Word (1975) were praised by an Esquire magazine piece in 2018).

Esquire magazine extols Tom Wolfe novels The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Painted Word as examples of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s to offer journalism research with techniques of fiction writing to offer a robust telling of the subject matter presented. The notion is that there’s a fictionalized and narrative structure of real life and motivation.

(Tom Wolfe wrote the 1987 book The Bonfire of the Vanities, whose underlying use as referenced harkens to a burning of objects condemned by religious authorities in Florence, Italy in 1497).

The Bonfire of the Vanities offers caricatures, or stereotypes for characters, including WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, aloof and estranged wife Judy McCoy, Jewish assistant district attorney Larry Kramer, media obsessed district attorney Abe Weiss, British expatriate and alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow, southern gold-digging mistress Maria Ruskin, Bronx youth and silent antagonist Henry Lamb, and Harlem religious political leader Reverend Bacon. That Wolfe has taken to looks beyond the surface of the stories of these and, in some respect other characters, takes the story that is told with significantly less punch in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) that followed three years later and adds depth that one loses when not getting the inside world of the characters.

(Different book covers for the Tom Wolfe book The Bonfire of the Vanities, as seen through time).

The Bonfire of the Vanities works as the first novel written by the author, which is to say that this book departs from the school of narrative nonfiction into fictionalized storytelling that was inspired by true events and composites of people with some made-up detail, or poetic license, to provide a compelling picture of the truth that Wolfe was aiming to share. Tommy Killian, for example, is reportedly based on New York City lawyer Edward Hayes. It is speculated here that Reverend Bacon is based on Al Sharpton and/or Jesse Jackson. That Wolfe offers a compelling tale viewed from multiple perspectives with depth offers the redeeming motivations of exceptional self-centeredness are present in the underlying story.

(Tom Wolfe wrote the 1987 book The Bonfire of the Vanities, whose underlying use as referenced harkens to a burning of objects condemned by religious authorities in Florence, Italy in 1497).

I found the book telling of The Bonfire of the Vanities much more gratifying than I did the movie telling, despite the high quality cast that contributed to the Brian De Palma film. It was in the depth and scope of the characters depicted that I found the experience of reading the book worthwhile. I give Tom Wolfe‘s The Bonfire of the Vanities 4.0-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, August 18, 2021