MALCOLM X
A ten-step film review by Ronald Hogan
Copyright 1992 Ronald Hogan
1) The film begins with an invocation, a call to prayer which summons Malcolm X to speak to the congregation. And then the screen is filled with the American flag. Remember that the most significant film to begin with that image was PATTON, and you're on the right track as to what's at stake in MALCOLM X. This film is nothing short of the first black biographical film epic. Most biographical films begin with some sort of testament to their authenticity, usually in the form of a title that says that the events are based on reality, sometimes through voice-over. PATTON had its subject directly address the film audience. JFK relied on an extensive documentary-like overview. MALCOLM X has Malcolm address an audience, that might very well be us (on the symbolic level, which is what I meant with PATTON as well), but significantly, Malcolm X isn't seen. Could it be that his words are more important than his image?
2) As the American flag burns, the film keeps returning to the videotaped footage of Rodney King being beaten by LAPD officers. I was wary of this material before going to the film, wondering how it would be handled, if it might just be in for inflammatory purposes. This is not the case. It serves to underline the words of Malcolm in a way that simply seeing him speak would not have done. And, when Lee later shows the violence against blacks that took place during the civil rights movement, the viewer is struck by the similarities. Spike Lee's point is that things haven't changed for the black people since Malcolm X's time, and the Rodney King footage is a very persuasive argument.
3) After the overture, the film proper begins with a sweeping track shot that eventually finds Spike Lee, and follows him down the streets of Roxbury. In a sense, the camera never really stops moving until the film is done. Oh yes, there are several static shots, probably more than half the shots in the film, if one bothered to count. But the eye is drawn to the way the camera swoops and glides and revolves around its subject. Lee has always made the most of the incredible talent that Ernest Dickerson possesses as a director of photography, and MALCOLM X is Dickerson's highest accomplishment yet. While the dance numbers in SCHOOL DAZE seemed stagy and artificial, in MALCOLM X they overflow with energy and exuberance. Lee and Dickerson's control over the film medium shows in every image.
4) Malcolm X at one point states that he chose the name X because in mathematics, it represents the unknown; as a black man, his past had been taken from him so that he didn't know who he really was. In the broader sense, any life is unknown. The biography or biographical film can show the outward events, and surmise the inner life of the subject from those events, but no matter how convincing, we have to remember that it's only an inferential hypothesis. In some of the ways the camera moves around Malcolom, swooping in from different angles, spinning around him, never staying in one place for very long, there may be a suggestion of the kind of probing that goes on in the biographical effort, the attempt to dig into Malcolm X's life and find out what was at his core.
5) The flashbacks into Malcolm's childhood, and the life of his parents, are disjunctive at first. They come abruptly, with no warning. In the overall scheme, though, they establish an effective psychological and symbolic link between Malcolm and his father. The juxtapositions become more meaningful each time they occur; the pieces fall into place with each scene. And the voice-over narration that accompanies some of those flashbacks, and many other scenes, ground the film in Malcolm's identity, making it the center of the picture. Many of those voice-overs seem to be straight out of the autobiography; as I mentioned in step one, Malcolm's words appear to be his legacy. The image, as close as it is to the original, is not an icon to be worshipped, but a reference point to what *is* important.
6) While MALCOLM X is the history of Malcolm X, it's also the history of black America. Malcolm is there as a center around which the history revolves, a focal point. So it is through him that we learn about Joe Louis, about zoot suits, about Jackie Robinson, and other key events.
7) And through him that we get a history of black music. Music has generally been a strong suit of Lee's, but in MALCOLM X it improves along with the rest of his talents. The highlights include Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and more. Special attention should, however, be called to the use of John Coltrane's "Alabama" for a montage of the civil rights violence and Junior Walker's "Shotgun" as the conspirators stake out the dance hall where they plan to kill Malcolm. And the full orchestral score that Terence Blanchard has written for the film is as epic in scope as the subject demands. The music over the confrontation with the police is one of the most effectively scored scenes of any film in 1992.
8) I've already mentioned that the Rodney King footage is used in a strong comparison with the civil rights violence of the '60s. The use of media footage from the period illustrates the conditions against which Malcolm X was fighting. It also works as a way to ground the film in historical reality. The 'imagined' life of Malcolm X is given credibility not only through Denzel Washington's strong physical resemblance, but through the art of surrounding that imaginative material with footage that we already accept as the real thing.
9) This technique was employed very effectively in JFK, and Lee has taken some very useful lessons (and some graciously donated footage) from that movie. Like Oliver Stone, Spike Lee uses several different types of film stock in the film. Black and white film is used to suggest television newscasts, no doubt recreating broadcasts that did take place. (In JFK, it was easier to tell, because we'd all seen Oswald getting shot in reruns; we knew what it looked like, and we knew that it was recreated accurately. I rather doubt the majority of the public is equally familiar with the media coverage of Malcolm X). Then there's the use of what looks like Super-8 in some scenes, and the setting of most flashbacks in paler hues than the bulk of the film. Film is a medium waiting to be manipulated, and Spike Lee is rapidly becoming one of our best experts.
10) The film began with an invocation. It closes with a eulogy--and the documentary footage of Malcolm X that had been missing until then. Ossie Davis repeats the same words he spoke at Malcolm's funeral, and in his words (and a special scene that follows), we are reminded that Malcolm X is dead, but his legacy remains. His life, like any life deemed worthy of biography, serves as an example for all of us. Much of the talk around the film centers on Malcolm's separatist positions, but MALCOLM X does present the tolerant Malcolm X that was emerging before he was snuffed out. It shows where Malcolm was heading--the footsteps in which today's generation of black Americans would, it is implied, do well to follow.
Follow-ups and email welcome. Ron Hogan rhogan@usc.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews