MALCOLM X
A film review by Jon Webb
Copyright 1992 Jon Webb
This film is an assembly of symbols of racism and politics in this country. It opens with two of the most powerful symbols in recent years: the Rodney King videotape, and a burning American flag. Clearly, Spike Lee is trying to grab hold of our political consciousness and move us.
The movie is really about three people: Malcolm Little (a.k.a. Detroit Red), the hood and dandy; Malcolm X, the follower of Elijah Muhammed; and the anti-racist who rejected black separatism after a pilgrimage to Mecca (whose long name I do not recall). The tone and direction of the film changes significantly with each incarnation of the man -- it is really three movies concatenated.
I liked the first two parts of the film better. The final conversion is just not convincing (frankly, I thought it was motivated by political convenience -- he needed a power base outside the Black Muslims), and the heart of Denzel Washington's character seems to have disappeared following the return from Mecca. (Though it was interesting actually seeing Mecca, a rare experience; to make this film, some of the crew actually had to convert to Islam.) He seems to simply be waiting for the assassin's bullets.
This is Spike Lee's master work, the one film he has been moving towards all these years. Its length and breadth will make it the starting point for many in their understanding of what Malcolm X was about. It admirably fills that role; it is part historical documentary, part a course on the issues that moved Malcolm X. But it is not really moving in itself. In Spike Lee's recent films (e.g., SCHOOL DAZE, JUNGLE FEVER), he explicitly calls on us to wake up to what is happening to African Americans, and in this film he tries to do so in every way possible -- by the use of charged symbols like a burning flag and the JFK assassination, by including actual appearances by controversial people like the Reverend Al Sharpton and Nelson Mandela, by showing us the most powerful possible images of African Americans being brutalized -- still, for me, it was not enough. Lee tries to include everything he can think of, but in the process he loses focus. I found the fairy tale HERO more moving politically than this film.
Denzel Washington turns in an admirable performance. It wasn't until the end of the film, when we see actually footage of Malcolm X talking, that I realized how good it really was: he has his smile down just right, his laugh. The man who plays Elijah Muhammed is also very good; just the right combination of saintliness and power. I also admired the performance of the woman who plays Betty Shabazz, at least before she married Malcolm X and became somewhat strident.
-- J
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