From: yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Malcolm X
Date: 15 Dec 1992 00:05:38 -0500
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.na.cs.yale.edu

donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
>In article <1gggj3INNhmi@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu
>(Norman Yarvin) writes:
>>The character of the man was thoroughly misrepresented.  The person in the
>>film was not the cynical Malcolm X who once remarked that his wife was the
>>only woman he ever found who could be trusted as much as 75%, and that he had
>>told her that.  
>>
>>Spike Lee was probably trying to make an accurate movie.  But he was by
>>nature too timid to do so.  The really astounding parts were all left out or
>>altered.  They would have detracted from the Big Picture he painted so well.
>
>I don't know, I still maintain that it was a fine movie.  You're right, in
>that he didn't express that same comment about trusting his wife.

Of course if the movie had everything that was in the book, it would have
been ten hours long.  But I meant that I can hardly conceive the person in
the film making any comment of that sort.

Some of the other discrepancies:

In the movie, Malcolm X pulls the Russian Roulette scene because one of the
other people in the burglary gang wants to be the "boss", and so does he.
In the book, there is no mention of the need for any kind of "boss"; it is a
complete non-issue.  Presumably everything is to be done cooperatively.  In
the book, he holds the gun only to his own head, and he warns the others
never to betray a man who is not afraid to die.  (Betrayal would be to the
cops, presumably.  It is a completely different question than leadership.)
There is no reason Spike Lee couldn't have done this scene right.  In my
view he altered it so that there would be a conflict between Malcolm X and
the white man who also wanted to be the boss.

Another discrepancy: Malcolm had, in both the movie and the book, a mentor
who was in the prison with him, and got him to read books.  In the movie
this was also the person who converted him to the Muslim religion.  However
in the book this man was not a Muslim, and did not convert Malcolm.  He was
just a sensible non-Muslim black person -- a breed which is nonexistent in
the movie.

I could go on.  Quite a few other scenes are different, and there is no
reason for them to be so.  Don't get the idea that I mind every change.
There are plenty of changes I don't mind, and which presumably did make the
movie easier to film.  For instance in the movie, the man "West Indian
Archie" does a lot of things; in the book those things were done by three or
four men.

>Lee didn't skimp on other, probably more controversial details...e.g.,
>Malcom X's comment about JFK's assasination being a case of the "chickens
>coming home to roost".  Sure he was a cynical guy...but that was adequately
>demonstrated in the film, I thought.

What I think he did take out were the things that hit too close to home.
For instance Malcolm X's strong criticisms of other black leaders.  There
are maybe a couple of places where those are mentioned slightly in the
movie, but they are never developed as are the criticisms of white people.

>There were a couple things I can think of that were different in the movie
>than they were described in the book.  For one, the book never says that
>Malcolm X's phone was bugged by the FBI (I think).  And the book doesn't
>explain away the Russian Roulette scene, the way the movie does,

It was supposed to be the CIA in the movie.  The book does not even contain
the word "CIA".  I was amused by this: yet another film-maker dragging the
"evil CIA" into his film.

The book does contain an explanation of the Russian Roulette scene (he
palmed the bullet), but only in the notes at the end.  However the book
makes it clear that he would not have told his partner about his faking it,
as he did in the movie.

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
 "Reasonable, adj.  Accessible to the infection of our own opinions.
 Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion, and evasion."- _The Devil's Dictionary_