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

John David Washington, Adam Driver and Laura Harrier in the Spike Lee movie ‘BlacKkKlansman’

Integrating law enforcement in Colorado Springs, Colorado is the first serving of the biographical, crime based, dark humor tale shared in the Spike Lee directed movie BlacKkKlansman (2018). The second serving delves into a law enforcement effort to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan. At the center of these 1972 events was Ron Stallworth, the first black officer of the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD). The film is inspired by Ron Stallworth‘s book Black Klansman: A Memoir.

(From left, John David Washington as Detective Ron Stallworth and Laura Harrier as Patrice Dumas in the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman).

John David Washington portrayed Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman, with Stallworth applying for undercover work after tiring of harassment in the records room of the CSPD. Stallworth is assigned to infiltrate the organization of national civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael (born Kwame Ture), wherein Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas, president of the Black Student Union at Colorado College. Dumas is a fictionalized character for this movie. Laura Harrier portrayed Patrice Dumas.

(From left, John David Washington as Detective Ron Stallworth, Adam Driver as Detective Philip ‘Flip’ Zimmerman, Michael Buscemi as Jimmy Creek and Ken Garito as Sergeant Trapp in the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman).

Getting reassigned to the intelligence division shortly after the rally, Stallworth responds to an advertisement for a local division of the Ku Klux Klan. Having called the group and made successful contact with Walter Breachway, as portrayed by Ryan Eggold, Stallworth finds that he needs to meet with the chapter in person. Breachway too is fictitious, though the contact is legitimate. Having used his real name over the phone, Stallworth recruited Jewish colleague Philip ‘Flip’ Zimmerman, as portrayed by Adam Driver, to make the physical contact that interacts with the local chapter. Zimmerman is reportedly a real person, though presented fictionally in the movie as well as the book.

(From left, Ryan Eggold as Walter Breachway and Jasper Pääkkönen as Felix Kendrickson in the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman).

Felix Kendrickson has some initial suspicions of Zimmerman as Stallworth, promoting some sense of stress in the manifestation of the two police officers. Meanwhile, Zimmerman learns of the vague outlines of an attack from Klan member Ivanhoe while Stallworth seeks expedited membership with members of Louisiana. Contact with Louisiana leads to direct contact for Stallworth with head of the large Klan organization David Duke. Jasper Pääkkönen portrayed Kendrickson as Paul Walter Hauser portrayed Ivanhoe and Topher Grace portrayed Duke.

(Topher Grace as David Duke in the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman).

The contact with Duke leads him to come to Colorado Springs to induct Zimmerman as Stallworth into the local Klan chapter, coupled with a civil rights attack involving Connie Kendrickson, as portrayed by Ashlie Atkinson. The induction coupled with the planned attack against a civil rights rally leads to legitimate storytelling stress when Ku Klux Klan member Walker, as portrayed by Nicholas Turturro, remembers Zimmerman from an arrest in his past. The film’s messaging offers clear parallels between goals of justice and injustice between those seeking civil rights gains posed in contrast to goals of hate and harm to those unlike members of the Klan.

(From left, actor Adam Driver, actor Jasper Pääkkönen and director Spike Lee onsite of the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman).

The political messaging of BlacKkKlansman clearly articulates injustice as it has existed overtime in the United States. The adding of context from the contemporary year of the movie’s release, with statements of racially based hate from David Duke and then president Donald Trump felt neither gratuitous nor sensational to me; the context felt necessary. The symbolism of the United States in black and white while simultaneously top-side-down evokes provocatively emotional content clearly stated and understood. The request to see this with the same emotion symbolized by the Klan seems inescapable. Accepting the statements and the tale as told by the movie, I grant BlacKkKlansman as directed by Spike Lee 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Top 20 Movie “Do the Right Thing”

Top 20 Movie Do The Right Thing (1989) ranks 7th in Matt Lynn Digital’s Top 20 Movies in ranked order listing. This critical look at race relations, political issues, urban crime and violence brought film producer, director, writer, and actor Spike Lee an Academy Award nomination for the best writing category for screenplay written directly for the screen.

The film stands as a testament to acknowledging racial tension in a way that speaks with sympathy to the perspectives of many sides. As the Roger Ebert review of Do The Right Thing says

“[Spike Lee] didn’t draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.”

(Spike Lee as Mookie in Do The Right Thing)

Do the Right Thing tells the story of a day in the life of one Brooklyn street. We meet the neighbors and the neighborhood, seeing in small steps how a heated, hot day in the life of a neighborhood looks and feels like. We see the humanity and the frustration as a neighborhood living in bigotry boils over into violence, and the setting of a revenge fire in the face of an unprovoked murder at the hands of the police.

 (Love and Hate for Radio Raheem as played by Bill Nunn in Do the Right Thing)

It is the loud music of Radio Raheem’s boom box, in concert with the demands of Buggin Out (played by Giancarlo Esposito) to see African American faces on the wall of Sal’s Pizzeria that ostensibly leads to the film’s resolution. Sal (played by Danny Aiello) takes a bite of hate out of the booming sound of Radio Raheem’s boom box, symbolically answering one form of disrespect (the loudness) with another (property destruction). The pizzeria is destroyed while Raheem loses his life; the inequality of this exchange given that insurance can rebuild a pizzeria is the testimony that speaks loudest.

As Rosie Perez, who played Tina in the film, is quoted as saying in the 20th anniversary DVD for Do the Right Thing:

“I saw the magic of the filmmaking…There’s a science to it. And it’s science, plus love, plus art, plus talent. And that occurred, and that’s why I think this movie is an American classic. I really do. I really do. Hands down. Hands down. Hands down.”

Do the Right Thing is our eighth (8th) ranked film. Twenty-eight years after the initial release, the message of this film still stands up today.

Matt – Saturday, December 9, 2017