From: barnhart@ddsw1.mcs.com (Mr. Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: Re: The Sabotage of Malcolm X
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:46:33 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A.

HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels) wrote:
:In article <1993Jan6.013417.18710@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
:stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski) writes back to
:>dem2@pyuxd.uucp (Me) who hinted darkly:
:
:>Hollywood trade publications are reporting that Lee's movie is
:>shaping up as a moderate box-office flop. Surveys indicate
:>two reasons: the movie is too long, and it's perceived as a
:>preachy, tedious history lesson.
:.
:.
:Yeah, I saw that "Datebook" article in the Chron today, too.
:However, I saw the movie twice (and plan to see it agin), and
:although it was less than SRO, it did appear to be well-attended
:during the New Year's weekend shows.  A fair smathering of white
:folks were there.

Ppppttt!  Lee's movie *does* appear to be a moderate box-office
flop, but I would dispute everything else, including the intent,
of this post.

First of all, it looks like the movie will gross $50 million domestic
box.  Maybe not great for a $35 million movie, as the trades are
saying.  *But* $7 million of that money Spike raised, so bear that
in mind when judging the return.  The studio should consider it a
$28 million movie, which of course they aren't.

Second, this is a movie with enormous foreign, video, and perpetual
viewing possibilities.  Along with _Do the Right Thing,_ the
_Malcolm X_ movie is distinctive and will likely be played over
and over again.

Which brings us to the real point of the post -- Spike's movie appears
to be failing.  Heh!  Heh!  Heh!

Sorry, Stefan, but the Malcolm movie is not preachy or tedious,
which is obviously *your* opinion.  Whatever of Malcolm gets under
your skin, Spike apparently did a good job of bringing to the screen,
because instead of praising the art while criticizing the character,
you bludgeon the whole thing because you don't like characters of
Malcolm X and Spike Lee.

Stanley Kauffman wrote this week, in an unexpectedly favorable
review of _Hoffa_ --

"What can we reasonably expect of a biographical film about a 
complex person?  What point is there in such a film?  Obviously
it can't include all of the person's relevant actions or ideas:
that's what books are for.  A film ought to convince us that the
very act of dramatization enlightens us about the person as
character, as alembic of ideas.  [N.B. alembic, n. (...) 2. anything
that refines, changes, or purifies.  Webster's New World.  I had to
look it up.]  We want to feel that the cinematic experience of
the life is enlarging, not exploitative.  To a considerable extent,
this was true of _Malcolm X_; to at least the same extent, it's
true of _Hoffa._"

Compare him with dilletantes like Richard Christiansen of the
_Chicago Tribune,_ who wrote a cover for this week's Arts magazine
that essentially complained about such movies because their directors
saw fit to include certain parts of their subjects' lives and omit
others, or create composite supporting roles that encompass several
peoples' lives instead of just hauling in the duller individual
parts straight from the book.  Christiansen and Michalowski obviously
do not get the point Kauffman (and Gabrielle and many, many others)
easily perceive: that a movie supplements the book, points toward it,
not away from it.  
:.
:>an exciting movie about a complex, brilliant, slightly disturbed
:>man. Spike wants to be a great educator, but the second half of
:>the movie rarely rises above the level of a made-for-TV docudrama.
:>The result is - a preachy, tedious history lesson.

Now wait a minute.  Are the "industry sources" saying that, or
just you?  (This is a rhetorical question.)

:.
:Spike did a good job. A real good job.  This is the best movie I've
:seen of his oeuvre. Spike's obvious sexism was at a distinct
:minimum, too. Maybe because the Widda Shabazz was checking him out,
:too.  OH, by the way folks.  Betty Shabazz had a tiny role (I don't
:know whether she was speaking or nonspeaking) in the Jill Clayburgh
:movie "An Unmarried Woman." She played a psychologist, I believe.
:If anything, she was listed in the credits--that's what I remember.
:
:

I was going to mention this last time.  Diane thought it was a 
wonderful movie but did not get carried away about it like I did,
precisely because the whole NOI operation resembled so many others
in its patriarchal, hierarchical structure.  Time to move on from
those things, I agree.  Still, what a *man.*


Aaron
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american