Spike Lee's BLACKKKLANSMAN

this is going to sound like a really terrible catch-all excuse but this is a movie that explicitly points up the phoniness and racism endemic to silent-age film and the hollywood golden age, and which features characters debating whether shaft and superfly represent exciting representation or blaxploitation. so maybe he wants you to be in a frame of mind where you're questioning the racism of comfy old genre tropes. or something!!!

I did like it, and the ending roiled me , but I too had issues with why they would continue to make Ron Stallworth a double agent after initial contact.

It was indeed done in real life, however in real life, they didn't bust up a terrorist plot, either. It was more low level infiltration, identifying members, observing actions, so using a surrogate to appear in the field makes more sense there, especially if that person is better in person and you're better on the phone.

Not when your agent's life is in danger because of an ongoing terrorist threat - especially given that Driver didn't even remotely try to sound like Ron, if not in timbre, but the way he actually pronounced words.

I saw this a week ago and have been waiting to post my thoughts here. First of all I think it's easily his best film in over a decade, since at least Inside Man or even 25th Hour. It's a procedural, not stylized much, solid performances, good pacing - OK. But then finally he uses his signature dolly shot with Ron and Patrice, and they move down the hallway like a fuse that's been lit, and suddenly we're at a cross burning, and then we're in Charlottesville. I knew about the ending in advance but good lord I never expected it to hit me so hard, I saw it with someone who also knew the ending and we were equally skeptical but we were both in tears at the end. "Pure cinema" is dead on - that final shot of the upside down flag being drained of color... just stunning.

Maybe the idea of the movie as a fuse and the ending as a bomb was in my head because of the climax with the C-4 or whatever, but that's what I felt the ending did: it exploded the true but small story into a much larger context and put everything into a greater, bleaker perspective. If we're going to talk about "movies where sounding white on the phone is an advantage," this is far superior to Blindspotting (a confident but modest buddy comedy) and Sorry to Bother You (a total mess, the further away I get from it). I've heard friends complain that BlacKkKlansman is "too centrist" - oh, please! Like VHS said, you really aren't going to give Spike Lee of all people the benefit of the doubt? He didn't write this on spec, Jordan Peele brought him the story and he did his thing with it.

Now, whether or not the movie holds up past that explosive ending, I'm not sure. Like I said, it's a very competent but very rote police procedural, and it's not short. It's been a week though and that ending is still just astonishing to me, and it props the movie up as a small story with a somewhat happy ending within the much larger and abyssal darkness of American brutality. That flag, man. Goddamn.

Thanks for that review. I've been putting this off because, yeah, I don't think I've liked a Spike Lee movie since "25th Hour" (as "Inside Man" is barely a Spike Lee movie, though it's at least hyper competent).

this was pretty good, and even though I've been skipping his stuff for about a decade I have no doubt its his best in awhile. It still has some typical Spike problems - uneven tone + characterizations, random plot dynamics, intermittently terrible music. But what's good about it is very good, and sometimes it's whiplashing between humor and horror is very effective. Some random thoughts:

- you could've heard a pin drop in my sold out theater with that final shot with the flag, holy shit. oddly my immediate reaction was to think of the cover of Stankonia.
- The juxtaposition of different groups chanting "white power"/"black power" - idk what Spike was really going for there. To argue for equivalency of those positions seems positively Trumpian. But maybe Spike was just trying to make it clear that choosing a side is required?
- the KKK viewing of "A Birth of a Nation" seemed like a sort of inferior version of what Tarantino did with the Nazi propaganda film in "Inglorious Basterds", minus the payoff (ie everyone in the Nazi audience getting brutally murdered) and the underlying implication/complicity of the IB (or BlackkKlansman) audience.
- seemed weird that Zimmerman literally made no attempt whatsoever to sound like white Ron Stallworth.
- Stallworth cornering Zimmerman in the records room about him not putting any skin in the game distinctly reminded me of Spike and Turturro's similar scene in Do The Right Thing, where he gives Turturro shit for having black heroes
- I had no idea there was another acting Buscemi brother

signature dolly shot with Ron and Patrice, and they move down the hallway like a fuse that's been lit

also ^^^ this, I was glad to see this type of shot actually used with purpose for once

also lol at the racist patrolman being played by the same guy who played Brian Wilson on the Beach Boys tv biopic, that made my head spin for a second

- The juxtaposition of different groups chanting "white power"/"black power" - idk what Spike was really going for there. To argue for equivalency of those positions seems positively Trumpian. But maybe Spike was just trying to make it clear that choosing a side is required?

Maybe? I was also kind of dumbfounded by his making a point to show both black activists and Klansmen calling the police pigs, like the latter group and its descendants don't worship cops...

So was I.

Like VHS said, you really aren't going to give Spike Lee of all people the benefit of the doubt? He didn't write this on spec, Jordan Peele brought him the story and he did his thing with it.

You can have a history of being good on an issue and still make a film that isn't good on that issue (especially if you didn't write it!). The cozy family white police department would feel phony no matter who's behind the camera.

- I had no idea there was another acting Buscemi brother

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 10:42 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i literally just that it was steve buscemi, heavily done up somehow

my wife was insisting that it was Steve w a fake nose through the whole movie and I was like naah there's some resemblance but it's not him

also forgot to mention Baldwin's intro - which seems like it was flown in from a different, Oliver Stone-directed movie that was nonetheless very entertaining with all of his spit-takes and "LINE!"-shouting antics. Dunno what that was doing there (I've never heard of that Beauregard guy but I assume he's real?), I assume Baldwin was just walking by the lot one day and Spike was like "oh hey will you do this for me real quick"

totally forgot about the Baldwin intro until now, but I enjoyed it.

lol i literally just that it was steve buscemi, heavily done up somehow

― gbx, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 1:31 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my wife was insisting that it was Steve w a fake nose through the whole movie and I was like naah there's some resemblance but it's not him

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 1:33 PM

I stuck around for the credits to make sure it wasn't Buscemi

I was also kind of dumbfounded by his making a point to show both black activists and Klansmen calling the police pigs, like the latter group and its descendants don't worship cops...

And anyone who's been to a demo meant to counter the far right would have made note of which group invariably enjoys police protection, for exactly this reason.

...holy shit that wasn't Steve??

It says it's his brother but listen how do we know for sure.

https://i.gifer.com/4s9.gif

You can have a history of being good on an issue and still make a film that isn't good on that issue (especially if you didn't write it!). The cozy family white police department would feel phony no matter who's behind the camera.

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, September 4, 2018 12:07 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, film is pretty good at showing all the shades of racism and how impactful they can be: Zimmerman and Creek aren't racist (or if they are it's ever so slightly) but all they can point out about black culture are black athletes; then Chief Bridges who is tolerant enough to hire the first black cop in the history of the city but also don't want Kwame making noise in Colorado Springs; then you have Landers who sexually assaults a black woman and use those kinds of words directly to Ron, he is bad, real bad but he ain't part of the KKK; then you have the KKK itself which is the end point of racism, obviously. I could add the cop who is scared the whole operation is going too far but I haven't thought about him as much.

You get from the film that these combine to make up the systemic racism of an environment, but also the notion that not all forms of racism are the same, how one form hides another and how a black person need to navigate it all. When Bridges burns all the documents the operation have produced, basically giving the KKK are hard pass, Lee's position on the police is clear. However, Lee (and Peele, Rabinowitz, Willmott) are smarter than 'all pigs are racists', the point of view of Patrice, which is the point of view in film that is the most theoretical, the less impactful. 'All pigs are racists' is not untrue, but it is also not useful as a storytelling device or as a way of thoroughly analyzing the situation of police, racism and black people in the US.

I wonder what Boots think of the Wire actually.

Saw this on Sunday, liked much of it. Like Adam Driver a lot.

Couldn’t stop comparing it to StBY, and while this was a far better-made film, I liked STBY more. I could understand why Boots has problems with this movie as the hero is literally Cointelpro, and Stallworth himself infiltrated the Peogressive Labor Party, which I believe Boots joined a decade later in Oakland.

Maybe my issues were that this was a liberal film, and StBY is a radical one. I really like the ending(s), as it felt like Spike was trying to have it both ways with the (literal) audience-pleasing scenes of the villains get their comeuppance, but then we go 40+ years later and these fucks are still out there. The raw footage felt manipulative, but not agitational. We’re shown horrific shit but there’s no programmatic aspect to it; like the film just says at the that “yeah, shit sucks, what can you do” and leaves it at that. Again, liberal, but not radical.

Dope Emory Douglas print in the shot of Belafonte’s scene, tho.

I wish Spike Lee had swapped directing jobs to do Equalizer 2 with Washington the Elder.

thought the pairing of kkk and black liberation meetings was risky but effective, because what we're seeing and hearing is the real, violent, dangerous oppression of black people (seen throughout the film and given its historical grounding by belafonte), and then to see on the other hand the kkk's paranoid baseless ravings when they are not the ones in danger.... I mean we have the kkk watching birth of a nation as if it's real history, and belafonte giving us real history from the same time period... passing down knowledge and having his real-life nightmare heard and honored, versus duke passing down empty hatred and gobbledygook to people who are literally blindfolded and whose responses are all scripted and equally empty. it definitely didn't feel like "both sides" to me.

the baldwin opener, I dunno, it worked for me as period dressing - establish where the klan is by giving us some of their propaganda, the kind of arguments they were making....? but that could have been done all kinds of ways. maybe the idea is to start you where the klan seem laughably dated and old-fashioned and incompetent, and then during the film we see how even bumbling and moronic klansmen pose incredible danger, and then conclude with the reminder that actually this was never remotely laughable and very definitely not dated.

it definitely didn't feel like "both sides" to me.

you left out the part where the KKK crowd chanting "White power" is immediately cross-cut with black people chanting "Black power", it's a very literal juxtaposition

I can't judge his intentions. What's onscreen is that both scenes are equally powerful and compelling, therefore by its very nature the white power scenes rise to the same level of rhetorical importance.

yet the paradox of the film is how the KKK scenes are goon show dumb -- boring and dumb. Obviously Lee thinks they're villains. But we didn't need 90 minutes of it.

Maybe my issues were that this was a liberal film, and StBY is a radical one.

Maybe in intention, but not in effect imo. The further I get away from it, the more STBY feels like a total mess, not only structurally but tonally and politically. It wants to be 7 different movies and all of the social realist stuff with the unions and the strike derail the film's momentum until that ridiculous horror movie horse ending. In effect, I thought STBY was apolitical farce. It's definitely the "cooler" film, but people are handicapping it, wary of criticizing it because it's his first movie, people really want to like it (I definitely did), and obviously we want a more thriving black American cinema. I thought Boots' criticisms of Blackkklansman were opportunistic and superficial. Like VHS said, the police burn all evidence of the investigation at the end. That's hardly a "cops are the good guys" or a "Blue Lives Matter" story (a friend said the latter, he also said Lee's film was "too centrist"... ugh).

I just don't think many people will walk away from STBY thinking "wow capitalism really sucks! I've gotta do something about it!" there's too much going on and almost all of it is half-baked and silly. which is fine, but like I said, in effect it has no political thrust. As opposed to Blackkklansman, which defies the viewer to walk away unmoved or unchallenged.

@ Shakey - I didn't leave it out, I was taking it as read since you already said it. Though honestly I didn't remember that juxtaposition til you brought it up, so clearly it didn't land as one of the most significant moves of the scene for me. My claim though is that the two meetings are made similar enough that the other information the filmmaker gives us, establishing their differences, is that much sharper. It's to point out that white supremacist cooptation of black power language - then as now - is shallow, stupid, and totally nonsensical given the context of the actual threats faced by these different groups.

it's not really the thread for it but imho the role of a film like STBY is to provide images and metaphors, as much as like idk, Network's sillier segments ---- like a year from now when young people need a way to point out the inhumanity of a corporate policy on its workers they could refer to "((noun associated with big spoilery twist))" or w/e. it's okay that it's all over the map, for me.

true. Network comparison rings true ("Why must women always first impugn a man's cocksmanship?" has to be one of the worst ever lines in an otherwise great movie). and I wouldn't be harping on STBY if it weren't being used as a cudgel against better films like Blindspotting and Blackkklansman.

Loved the messiness of STBY and the horse-dudes made me laugh a lot. I almost wished it was messier actually, reminded me of Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man. There was some elements that were a bit 'undergrad film school' like the television show, the worryfree ads or Detroit's art performance piece, but that was drowned by the other funny stuff.

The only comparison that interests me is that both film have female characters that are more radical than the male lead. In both films the male leads are dealing with situations of compromise and navigating the waters of living in a white world, and are in direct opposition with the female leads that are more into rejecting the whole of the oppressive system, they both have conversations about their respective positions at around the same time in the narrative structure. I am still a neophyte when it comes to african-american cinema, but is that a common trope in african-american culture?

maybe the idea is to start you where the klan seem laughably dated and old-fashioned and incompetent, and then during the film we see how even bumbling and moronic klansmen pose incredible danger, and then conclude with the reminder that actually this was never remotely laughable and very definitely not dated.

this seems right

I walked in a few seconds after the movie started (afaict) and I took Alec Baldwin's intro to be an explicit Trump reference to bookend the film's finale. A rhetoric-spouting stooge who doesn't even know what the fuck he's talking about, needing to call "line" multiple times.

BTW totally vital movie imo, and I forgive any and all lapses in taste or judgement.

You get from the film that these combine to make up the systemic racism of an environment, but also the notion that not all forms of racism are the same, how one form hides another and how a black person need to navigate it all.

I think the movie severely underplays this: everyone hates Landers, and while at the beginning of the movie they're like "but he's one of us, can't do anything about it" as soon as the opportunity presents itself they jump to get rid of him. The characters whose racism is more benign contribute more to the fight against racism than they do to its proliferation. It really doesn't drive home how powerful systemic racism is.

However, Lee (and Peele, Rabinowitz, Willmott) are smarter than 'all pigs are racists', the point of view of Patrice, which is the point of view in film that is the most theoretical, the less impactful.

I think it's kinda unfair to the movie to say that's Patrice's pov, they give her more respect than that! Patrice's anti-police stance comes from the idea that if you're police, you've effectively signed up to be part of the oppressors - which from a black militant viewpoint in the 1970's seems to me pretty inarguable, regardless of what any cop's personal stances on the matter are. The idea that ppl are criticizing the film for not saying that all cops are racists - something Lee has brought up too - is a total red herring, the grievance isn't about personal bigotries.

Like VHS said, the police burn all evidence of the investigation at the end. That's hardly a "cops are the good guys" or a "Blue Lives Matter" story

The superior's explanation for this is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene and the fact that the rest of Stallworth's team are as angry about it as he is quickly pushes it into "damn those pencil pushers!" cop movie trope territory. I agree that systemic racism is a pretty likely explanation for the decision there is no time given to tackling that - perhaps because it would lack subtlety, but I dunno if that's really a valid argument considering the rest of the movie.

(tbf in the real world the police dept would probably be more than justified in halting the investigation at least since Flip has been compromised but I don't think it's very useful to look at the movie in those terms)

I think most people have highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the movie, especially the ending which felt like a gut punch.

Probably not the scene most people will remember the movie by, but really, really loved the dance sequence to ‘Too Late to Turn Back Now’ in the bar which was just a joyous, beautiful piece of cinema.

That scene was fantastic--in part because, of all the great early-'70s soul, that song tends to be overlooked.

Criminally never heard it until seeing it in the movie. Checking Wikipedia it was #2 in US, but failed to chart in the UK, too busy listening to Slade and T-Rex I guess.

I missed Lee saying what year this was supposed to be. Would have assumed it was early 70s from the clothing styles worn by the black power group. Looked up when the true story happened which was 78 so think it looks a bit anachronistic.
Enjoyed it quite a bit as a film though.

Did leave me wondering about things like recording and transmitting technology given the time I thought it was supposed to be. & how far a wire would be able to transmit and not be conspicuous as soon as a jacket was taken off or the wearer had to move around a lot.
& if a basement room would have allowed a signal to get out.

The end did put tears in my eyes. But I think that footage tends to.

The film shifts the action to the early 70s - we see Nixon re-election posters in some scenes, and Nixon of course resigned in August 74.

Spike has recently joined the "Fuck John Ford" crowd. Ford made at least 3 better films on American racism that this one.

He gives his villains really atrocious dialogue and they're usually performed badly (the Danish actor who played Felix here, plus his wife).

Would Nick Turturro be accepted in the KKK? Don't they consider Sicilians and southern Italians mongrels?

Best move: borrowing Hillary's "superpredators" for Baldwin's opening rant.

So lucky for Ford “optics” never got in the way.

We'll remember this is as a not very good film that deserved watching.

the Charlottesville footage was not "so familiar" to me bcz I avoided seeing it last year.

odd that he dubbed over Vivien Leigh's voice in the GWTW clip; i think it was the same actress who was cueing Baldwin tho.

i thought maybe the Nixon posters were kept up for several years by his fans in the Klan. Does any of the needledrop score postdate '72?

Probably not the scene most people will remember the movie by, but really, really loved the dance sequence to ‘Too Late to Turn Back Now’ in the bar which was just a joyous, beautiful piece of cinema.

this was, for reasons I don't completely understand, the most moving scene to me - perhaps because, simple as it is, I've never (?) seen a scene like that before

i seem to remember a similar "musical number" in Malcolm X?

Does any of the needledrop score postdate '72?

I wondered how much of the decision to set it in the early '70s rather than 1979 had to do with the soundtrack. Then I thought, well, something off Breakfast In America would be just as batshit/awful a song choice as "Lucky Man."

finally saw this. Best movie of the year? Close if not.

right, it's diagrammatic, but successfully and cleverly so, while some of his other films kind of shade toward just being simpleminded.

I misread that as darraghamac.

on that note

this was very meh on most levels, you'd have to think detaching spike lee's name from it would see it reviewed at 5/10 and certainly nowhere near oscar noms

I agree with your rating. It's not like Spike is a regular at the Oscars though, so not really sure why this one broke through in the way it did

accumulation of years of being shamefully overlooked is my guess, i guess its always been a feature of the awards

detaching spike lee's name

do you think it’s his best since Inside Man though

.....yes?

no followup questions

yeah but why did that new Margaret Atwood book win Man Booker?