Spike Lee's BLACKKKLANSMAN

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.

also cried over the ending. that lead up with Ron and Patrice floating out was some amazing shit to me.

I really liked this. Ending was terribly moving. Lee can really choke me up when he wants to and there's usually a moment or two in his better fiction films that just get me "right heah".

I liked this, even if Lee was too blunt with the Trump allusions throughout (something which makes the concluding montage, powerful as it is, a bit redundant). I love the space that he makes for things that he cares about, though; even though this is a fairly long police thriller, there are still a number of speeches and, best of all, the "It's Too Late To Turn Back Now" dance sequence.

This movie was a (better than usual, but still) Spike Lee mess and imo a slog that really needed a trim, better character development and a better sense of thematic focus. To that end, I really would have preferred a Spike Lee Charlottesville/Trump-era doc, and in fact would still like that. Dude just has such a tough time with scripts and keeping narratives under control, but I think his documentaries, with their sort of externally imposed structures, really allow him to be his best. The most inspired bits of this, successful or too on the nose or not, were clearly speaking about the present, so I wish he didn't hide behind this tonally incoherent dress up party and just focused on the present.

Super weird that for a movie with so many great soul songs and a soulful score (love the electric guitar), its big victory lap scene is set to ELP, basically the whitest music ever made. Was that ... intentional?

Outside of a couple of documentaries, only thing that meant anything to me at the movies last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxkVu3Fa27M

That scene, along with a couple of others, also makes me wish Spike Lee had made a different movie. The movie's characters are great, wasted on a weak story. I wanted to know more about all of these people and couldn't have cared less about the foregrounded clownish-or-no Klan stuff (which would have been more powerful and effective playing out quietly in the background, imo, its violence and hate lurking like a monster waiting to pop out).

one of those scenes that takes a song i have heard and loved for many years, and still manages to claim it --- i guarantee you in thirty years when i hear that song, i'll picture that room full of joyous, young, loving, proud black faces, under that gorgeous warm lighting.

Great description--it's such a heartfelt tribute to Soul Train, too.

The cinematographer is Chayse Irvin, of Beyoncé's Lemonade.

"The movie's characters are great, wasted on a weak story. I wanted to know more about all of these people and couldn't have cared less about the foregrounded clownish-or-no Klan stuff (which would have been more powerful and effective playing out quietly in the background, imo, its violence and hate lurking like a monster waiting to pop out)."

ok maybe but the whole premise of the movie is the black-guy-infiltrating-the-klan. The movie wouldn't have existed without that story.

...which is highly fictionalized here. So they could've fictionalized it in a better way.

a better lead actor might have helped