Spike Lee creates great emotion!

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2014)

Malcolm X was a fantastic movie that should have won an Oscar, if not for best movie than for Denzel Washington's performance as Malcolm X. Spikes Lee's style pairs beautifully with the complex topic surrounding Malcolm X. Spike Lee portrays the beginning of Malcolm's life through a rose colored lens. Lee shoots Malcolm's young days as a hustler in a softer, foggier lens than the rest of the movie. The way it is filmed sets an almost light hearted and ignorant tone for the start of the film. After Malcolm gets placed in jail, the way the movie is filmed changes. Spike Lee now displays the film through sharp images. This gives the movie a more serious feel and present Malcolm's new perspective of life in a very direct way. In the scene with the dictionary, Spike Lee uses camera movement to highlight the significant words in the definitions on the page. The camera jumps from word to word on the pages of the dictionary, focusing on important words such as "black" and "evil". It helps us understand Malcolm's agitation as he discovers that white people have been defining black as a bad and devilish thing for hundreds of years.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X which was written by Alex Haley was a very unemotional book. It seemed to tell the story of Malcolm's life in a list format. The movie on the other hand was very emotional. There were many scenes that didn't even need the sound placed in it, to convey the emotion in it. One scene is when Malcolm and his wife Betty are preparing for their wedding. Spike places them very close to each other and sets the camera close to them to give the scene an intimate feel. He films it from a side profile view allowing the actors to interact face to face without the camera feeling like it is intervening. This emotion is what makes this movie outstanding instead of just a good movie. I highly recommend it for anyone who is trying to understand who Malcolm was and why he and his followers acted as they did. It can really change someone's perspective on life and displays some of the problems in society that have yet to be solved.