DIRECTOR
Spike Lee
SCREENWRITERS
James Baldwin
Arnold Perl
Spike Lee
based
on the book
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by
Malcolm X
Alex Haley
PRODUCERS
Spike Lee
Marvin Worth
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Ernest Dickerson
MUSIC
Terence Blanchard
EDITOR
Barry Alexander Brown
CAST
Denzel Washington (Malcolm X)
Angela Bassett (Betty Shabazz)
Albert Hall (Baines)
Al Freeman Jr. (Elijah Muhammad)
Delroy Lindo (West Indian Archie)
Spike Lee (Shorty)
Theresa Randle (Laura)
Kate Vernon (Sophia)
Lonette McKee (Louise Little)
Tommy Hollis (Earl Little)
James McDaniel (Brother Earl)
Debi Mazar (Peg)
Joe Seneca (Toomer)
Giancarlo Esposito (Thomas Hayer)
Roger Guenveur Smith (Rudy)
Craig Wasson (T.V. Host)
David Patrick Kelly (Mr. Ostrowski)
Veronica Webb (Sister Lucille Rosary)
Karen Duffy (Sophia's Friend)
John Sayles (F.B.I. Agent)
Martin Donovan (F.B.I. Agent)
Nicholas Turturro (Boston Cop)
William Fichtner (Cop at Harlem Station)
Vincent D'Onofrio (Bill Newman)
Christopher Plummer (Chaplain Gill)
Karen Allen (Miss Dunne)
Peter Boyle (Captain Green)
William Kunstler (The Judge)
Nelson Mandela (Soweto Teacher)
Ossie Davis (Himself)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 194m
U.S. release: November 18, 1992
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Other Spike
Lee joints
reviewed on this website:
- Bamboozled
- Clockers
- 4
Little Girls
- Get
on the Bus
- He
Got Game
- Summer
of Sam
- 25th
Hour
|
Late
in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, the man of the title (Denzel
Washington) sits in a hotel room and listens to the phone ringing.
He doesn't answer it; he picks up the receiver and puts it back
in its cradle, knowing that each call is another whispered death
threat. Lee intercuts this with shots of Malcolm's wife Betty
(Angela Bassett) at home: Frantic and terrified, she too has
been getting crank calls. Throughout, the jaunty oldie "Shotgun"
plays, a chilling omen of what's in store for Malcolm.
With Malcolm X, Spike Lee, after a couple of bummers (Mo'
Better Blues, Jungle Fever), has rediscovered the
joy of combining crackling filmmaking with solid drama. For Malcolm's
life was nothing if not great drama -- a narrative of moral empowerment.
What other public figure of recent history pulled himself hand
over hand out of the depths of hell to become an internationally
recognized leader, and then continued to redefine himself right
up until his murder? Such material demands a rock-steady director,
an artist prepared to illuminate all the faces of Malcolm. The
Spike who made the scattershot Jungle Fever couldn't have
managed Malcolm X. This is the work of the Spike who made
Do the Right Thing. Lee, I'm relieved to report, is a
master again.
Reworking an old script by James Baldwin and Arnold Perl, based
on Malcolm's autobiography as told to the late Alex Haley, Lee
shapes Malcolm's life as a portrait in perpetual change. Malcolm
was a hard man for anyone to pin down; here, you see that he
couldn't quite pin himself down, either. He spent his days working
towards something, some way to get people of color out from under
the boots of whites, and the nature of his mission kept shifting
from an encompassing hatred of whites to a philosophy closer
(but not identical) to that of Martin Luther King. (If people
today peg Malcolm solely as a white-basher, that may be because
his "white devil" rhetoric was more widely publicized
than his more temperate later views, after he realized that hypocrisy
existed even among Muslims.) Dramatizing the stages in Malcolm's
development (zoot-suit stud, hustler, prisoner, Muslim, husband
and father, leader), Lee puts across the excitement of intellectual
growth, the thrill of empowerment through words, the magic of
oratorical genius.
At the very least, Malcolm was a bit of sand in the machine of
the white conscience. Loud and uncompromising, he was a symbol
to everyone -- a great symbol for his black brothers and sisters,
a worrying symbol for status-quo whites. The challenge is to
find the human being inside the symbol, and Denzel Washington,
like his director, has his game face on. In a stunning scene,
Malcolm strides into a police station, demanding to see a Nation
of Islam member who has been arrested and brutally beaten. Outside,
awaiting further instructions, stand a massive and neat formation
of Malcolm's followers. Out in the street, after the wounded
prisoner has been taken away via ambulance, Malcolm raises his
gloved finger, and hundreds of people quietly disperse. We might
not buy this moment if not for Washington's subtle yet steel-hard
authority.
Washington plays the younger Malcolm as something of a fool,
a black man so carefully removed from his roots that he subjects
himself to a painful conk to make his hair straight and "white."
(Lee, in another self-deprecating performance, plays "Shorty,"
Malcolm's sidekick in the early days, who gives Malcolm his first
conk; Lee himself appears with a conk, perhaps out of solidarity
with his star.) Gradually, as Malcolm educates himself and becomes
serious (yet still charismatic), Washington's performance takes
on a Shakespearean elegance and heroism. And also Shakespearean
tragedy: When Malcolm realizes the full extent of the forces
against him -- that his violent death is no longer just a possibility
but a given -- Washington's face goes dead and numb. The dazzling
heat and charm are gone, leaving only exhaustion and resignation
-- the human being near the end of his journey.
Malcolm had a way of fascinating some of the same people he repelled;
he did it by speaking plainly and ferociously, using impeccable
logic that couldn't be refuted, slashing white hypocrisy with
razor-precise strokes, lashing out at the "Uncle Toms"
and "house niggers" he felt were a hindrance to black
advancement. Wisely, Lee reproduces some of Malcolm's great speeches
verbatim and lets Washington use every ounce of persuasion in
his repertoire to sock Malcolm's points home. You're not just
seeing an actor reading Malcolm's words; you're seeing Malcolm's
spirit come through Washington, as a force that cannot be denied.
The point of Lee's engrossing, scathing epic, which begins with
the nightmare blur of the Rodney King video, is that as long
as racism lives, the spirit of Malcolm will -- must --
live. That's the reason for the epilogue, with the classroom
kids saying "I am Malcolm X." They're not saying "I,
too, will hate white people"; they're saying "I, too,
will work hard and make the best of myself despite the resistance
of some white people." Malcolm himself must have
wished there were no need for Malcolm X. But there was a need
for him, then and now, as there is also a need for Malcolm
X. |