Review: Malcom X

Directed by:
Spike Lee

Story:

Spike Lee’s monumental and epic biopic is divided into three parts: First, we meet young Malcolm Little – born in 1925 as the son of a black preacher who was killed by the Ku Klux Klan and a mother, who is driven to institutionalized insanity after losing her husband.

Malcolm grows up separated from his family in the streets of Harlem, New York. Soon he gets in touch with a life of hustling, crime, betting and drugs. Along with his friend Shorty (Spike Lee, who actually belonged to a group of people the real Malcolm X was together with), he gets more and more involved in a world of addiction and trouble. This episode and their criminal careers end with Malcolm and Shorty getting busted for robbery. They are sentenced to ten years and stayed eight years in prison.

The second part of the story depicts Malcolm's prison years when he gets to know a man (Albert Hall), who becomes Malcolm’s religion teacher or missionary of the Nation of Islam. In jail Malcolm undergoes a process of rising spiritual as well as political consciousness and becomes a Muslim and a blind follower of the radical organisation NOI and its leader Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman, Jr.). The Nation of Islam pleads for a complete segregation between black and white people and is characterized by prejudiced antagonism against white people (“The white man”) as well as other leaders of civil rights movements who stand in for peaceful coexistence, like e.g. Martin Luther King, The Nation of Islam is not a violent organization, but it is was given the name of a group of hate preachers.

Malcolm, now called Malcolm X (he dropped the surname of the slave master who once owned his family), is soon advancing to the most outrageous and successful disciple and agitator of the organization, and becomes popular in the USA. His wife Betty (Angela Bassett) stays on his side, giving birth to his children and supporting him.

Time is passing by and meanwhile the members' of the NOI feelings of dissension grow. In the leaders’ points of view, Malcolm becomes too popular and is too often presented in the media. To the point: he becomes too powerful.

This is where the third section of the film (or of Malcolm X’s life) starts: Malcolm – realizing that in his religious and political home, the Nation of Islam, the tables have turned – breaks  with the organization and initiates his own movement. Malcolm then has gone through an even deeper spiritual transformation on a journey to Mecca where he learns that all people – black and white, brown and yellow, men and women - need to work together to achieve changes. To show this to the world, he now calls himself El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. When he returns to the US he already knows that his future is fated since the Nation of Islam threatens him and his family. Malcolm was assassinated in 1965 at the age of 39.

Analysis:

By casting Denzel Washington, Spike Lee chose the perfect man for the job. Not only because of his astonishing physical similarity with the original Malcolm X, but due to his ability to slide into the figure perfectly. Obviously he identifies himself with the protagonist, in a distant and respectful way. Without a doubt, Washington painted a masterpiece by playing the main part of the movie – after all he was nominated for the Oscar. Angela Bassett actually plays exactly the same part as in “Ali” – the thoughtful, strong and admonishing wife.

The movie as a whole is surprisingly conventional and smooth, which is quite unusual for Spike Lee. He earned a reputation as a provocative and ambitious director, who has always been conscious of black history and its legacy.

Spike Lee, who rewrote the original script by James Baldwin and Arnold Perl, broke with the financiers of the film because of lacking support and shot Malcolm X being financially dependent on the support of celebrities like Bill Cosby, Prince or Michael Jordan. Although he now had the possibility to make an independent, but expensive movie, Lee did not decide to create a movie aside from the mainstream. Obviously Spike Lee leered at the Academy Awards, maybe to honour his idol and so Malcolm X became a worth watching, but typical Hollywood biopic.

What we can say is that Lee has chosen a larger-than-life project on showing a whole and eventful biography, and it is also an interesting and important history lesson for everyone. But what we also have to say is that, especially at the end of the anyway long, long story (201 min.), Lee exaggerates by overextending solemn and elevated hymns on Malcolm X, ignoring the controversies this historical figure provoked. But as a special appearance, in this final section we can admire Nelson Mandela teaching a class of children (actually teaching the audience).

Malcolm X delivers two DVDs:

Apart from the main film we find several special features on the second DVD, which last 48 min. extra time. The bonus material is various, but all in all, a little disappointing. The content is small, which becomes evident because of several repetitions.

“Behind the scenes” shows us what we have already seen when watching the movie. There are no outtakes and rare interesting information about the set, which I personally cannot understand. This production was undoubtedly voluminous and ambitious, so why didn’t they make use of the possibility to show more of the background?

Unfortunately, the feature “Historic background” does not deserve this title. In fact it is just a mixture of two other features (Statements of Cast and Crew and Trailer). Remarkable on the other side: The widow and the daughter of Malcolm X were interviewed and remember the black leaders’ heritage, talking about Malcolm’s aims, ideology and himself as a father and husband.
Into the bargain, we find a glossary of important notions in the context of black history and the civil rights movement.

Review by Caecilia Smekal