Climate of Malcolm X Times

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2014)

The life of Malcolm X revolves around two of the most highly charged subjects in American consciousness. Those subjects being Sex and Race. Here in America, the strain of hypocrisy that runs throughout these issues is astonishing and makes objective analysis a formidable and daunting task.
People tend to forget that all this started when a journeyman writer working for Playboy magazine landed an interview with this firebrand only then beginning to come into renown. That writer was Alex Haley who, in my opinion, later went on to be for African American History what Homer has become for Greek History. Haley explained to his audiences and me, a cocky and arrogant high school playwright at the time whom he wanted to take down a peg, how hard it was to get Malcolm to open up and speak freely about his life. At the outset, Malcolm presented himself as the proselytizer of the honorable Elijah Muhammud and prefaced many of his statements to Haley with the Spiritual Leader's name. During one of these interviews, Malcolm reminisced about his times as a Lindy Hopper in the dance halls of Harlem and apparently the memory was so vivid he got up out of his seat and started to cut a rug with a few steps. Haley recounted this incident as a breakthrough in the course of the interviews and after that, it was much easier to get Malcolm to talk about his earlier life.
This series of interviews became, to a large extent, the basis for THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X, later published by Grove Press. You'll notice in the beginning of Spike Lee's MALCOLM X prominent footage is given to Malcolm X's days as a Lindy Hopper and that this is where the narrative seems to take off. The thing that is interesting to me is how Alex Haley, a paid representative of an organ spearheading the Sexual Revolution, ends up encountering a representative of the Black Cultural Revolution and the phenomena this eventually produces.
There is more to the equation than this. Before Spike Lee, writers like myself loved to juxtapose the careers of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King for insights and enlightenment and fascinating parallels can be drawn between these two iconic leaders. In fact, I was surprised that the photograph of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King meeting each other that was so prominently displayed at the end of DO THE RIGHT THING didn't find its way underneath the flaming flag at the beginning of MALCOLM X. What is of interest here is how these two extraordinary individuals appeared poles apart on the issue of how to defend self determination or achieve greater human freedom and yet end up as martyrs for the cause. The theme of nation building which Elijah Muhammud was espousing on a rudimentary basis is to be found within the nexus of their relationship.
Spike Lee tells the story of MALCOLM X with a sweep and a verve and a heartfelt vitality and wit. You can sense how much he loves his subject when, as playing Shorty, he asks Malcolm played by Denzel Washington, whether or not he really put a loaded pistol to his head playing Russian roulette or palmed the bullets beforehand. It is like a question he always really wanted to ask this figure and now finally gets a chance to do so in his film. This scene reeks of hero worship and yet is oddly endearing.
I also would have liked to have seen an ending something like that of Hype Williams' film BELLY grafted onto the end of MALCOLM X suggesting that the time was well nigh for black men to stopping killing black men under any pretext. This, and a moment of silence, as the film faded to black with Nina Simone singing 'TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK' to better discharge the process of catharsis. I would have preferred this to Lee's homage to SPARTACUS with school kids chanting "I AM MALCOLM X!".
That being said, the process of how MALCOLM X came to be made is almost as adventuresome as the life of Malcolm X himself. It is amazing how many talented people came together within the artistic community to make this particular phenomenon happen. The ensemble achieves true synergy more often than not and the chemistry between characters on all levels is real and palpable. MALCOLM X comes across as a great show despite the fact that Lee succumbs to the temptation to make white folks the Indians and black folks the Cowboys and a beautiful white woman ends up kissing a black man's dirty foot.