Based on the book The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley, screenplay by Arnold Perl and Spike Lee, who also directed and played Shorty. Denzel Washington as the lead role, featuring Angela Bassett, Delroy Lindo (as of this writing one of the best reasons to watch The Chicago Code) and Al Freeman, Jr.
An epic film based on the life of a real person is always cause for both excitement and alarm. Short of a complete, second-by-second film of a person's existence any book or film is going to be edited, whittling out the parts that Sir Alfred Hitchcock called "the dull bits." We cannot as an audience actually bear witness to every moment; it is impossible. It is just as impossible for a writer or filmmaker to bear witness, even if the tale they are telling is their own. Memory, as Stephen King wrote, is such a subjective thing.
Epic films, for me, always have at their center one figure. (Usually it is a man; how I wish someone would give an epic treatment to the life of Mahalia Jackson.) As the film weaves its tale, the central figure usually has to fight their own demons until they see that they themselves are not as others and simultaneously the times around them are in a similar upheaval. The central figure of an epic, then, is a showing of the zeitgeist; their tale is the story of us all, writ large, showing on the expansive canvas of history as it unfurls.
Think of Lawrence Of Arabia; Gandhi; Patton; even The Ten Commandments. Here, we see men, men like no other but not seeing that they are different until events surpass them. (Granted, the real Patton had a rather clear view of himself in history, but he is an exception rather than the rule.) As the events of their world overtake them, they rise up and refuse to bend, standing taller than the rest but showing a reflection of that which we all know and feel.
The story of Malcolm Little, who later became Detroit Red, and then Malcolm X and finally El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, is the story of the United States writ on the flesh of one man, whose soul and blood make clear so much of what has been missed.
His own story is the story of a man's journey, from angry heartbroken child to thug pimp hustler to an awakened soul to, finally, a soul of legendary proportions. In the book's introduction, Haley remarks how, upon meeting (the then) Malcolm X, that the man was closed, refusing to open himself up until Haley asked X about his mother. That caused a moment, a breakthrough and the tale began to flow.
This film is massive, like any other epic. It catches the ebb and flow of the times and the tsunami of a man's understanding of his own soul and his proper place in history.
To be completely honest, I was raised during the time of his ascendancy and the man was not a man but a monster, hate filled and rage possessed.... or at least I was told. When the film came around, my family was in one of our periodic moments of low funds, so I had to wait until it came out on video.
I was most interested in the film mostly due to the director. Spike Lee has made some truly astonishing films. Also, I have been a fan of Denzel Washington from his days on St. Elsewhere, and the two men working together sparked a real desire. I'd already seen She's Gotta Have It (which was hysterical) and Do The Right Thing (genius but misunderstood). DtRT was an angry film, a different form of hysterical, and I could see how people thought it was about hate when it was, instead, about anger. Hot days, hot nights, hot tempers: how could the film NOT end any other way?
I approached School Daze with some trepidation, then, fearing more rage, and instead was shocked back to my core. The film did not come out and say to me, Hey, White Boy, you don't get it half what you think you do, but it could have, and maybe should have. The last line, spoken by another acting giant Mr. Laurence Fishburne "Please. Wake up." was a kick in the balls.
From that moment, I was totally all about Spike, as I had in the past with his closest peers, Ingmar Bergman, Frederico Fellini, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa.... brilliant.
Finding the first pairing of Washington and Lee Mo' Better Blues, I was stunned. Not that the film was so good (I expect no less from Lee), not that the acting was first rate (no less from Washington) but that it was so damned neglected... the fucking thing ends with a brilliant montage that is, at heart, a music video for John Coltrane! What's not to love and adore here?
Thus, seeing them team again, to approach one of the biggest figures of my childhood... I could hardly contain myself.
There was absolutely nothing to prepare me for this film. I am glad of that. The first thing I want/need to say is that the film was so powerful, so perfect in its rendition, that after I rewound the tape I dug my copy of the book. Had I not had to be at work, I would have read it cover to cover in one sitting. I was stunned: the first thing that went through my mind was the old Firesign Theater album: Everything You Know Is Wrong.
I was also stunned into a silent rage that this film, so sweeping, so grand, so epic in every conceivable manner was utterly neglected by the Oscars. Nothing, not a nomination or recognition.
The supporting cast is brilliant. Watching Delroy Lindo's character go from street power to hopeless waste of a man is heartbreaking. Angela Bassett, so beautiful as to bring the film to a halt is so flawless in her portrayal that one cannot fathom why she isn't in more films. Al Freeman, Jr., a familiar face in so many films, carries a quiet sense of personal dignity that is majestic.
It is Washington, though, that carries the burden of bringing this misunderstood man to the screen and to life. He performance of the man mirrors Lindo's at some points, and Freeman's and is a perfect foil with Bassett. The man's life is shown as a series of movements in the symphony of American History, powerful, strong and (as Arthur Miller wrote) needful of attention. We dare not ignore this man.
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