Malcolm X

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Just as Do the Right Thing was the capstone of Spike Lee’s earlier career, Malcolm X marked the next milestone in the filmmaker’s artistic maturity. It seemed everything Lee had done up to that point was to prepare him for this epic biography of America’s fiery civil-rights leader, who is superbly played by Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington, from his early days as a zoot-suited hustler known as “Detroit Red” to his spiritual maturity after his pilgrimage to Mecca, as a Black Muslim by the name of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. Do the Right Thing climaxed with the photographic images of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King engulfed by flames of rage; Malcolm X explores the genesis and evolution of that rage over Malcolm’s lifetime, and how these two great figures—held up to the public as polar-opposites within the African American human rights movement (King for nonviolent civil disobedience, Malcolm for achieving equality “by any means necessary”)—were each essential to the agenda of the other. Lee careens from the hedonistic ebullience of Malcolm’s early days to the stark despair of prison, from his life-changing conversion to Islam to his emergence as a dynamic political leader—all with an epic sweep and vitality that illuminates personal details as well as political ideology. Angela Bassett is also terrific as Malcolm’s wife, Betty Shabazz. —Jim Emerson

Barnes and Noble

Spike Lee asserted his preeminence among black filmmakers by virtually insisting that he direct Malcolm X, a Warner Bros. project that Lee wrested away from white director Norman Jewison. Based on Malcolm X’s autobiography (as told to Alex Haley), Malcolm X stars Denzel Washington as the eponymous freedom fighter, and through an exceedingly deft use of flashbacks, it tells the whole story of the man’s life. We see his salad days as a street hustler, his imprisonment for burglary, his conversion to Islam, his work as a disciple of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman Jr.), and finally his assassination in 1965. Washington is extraordinary in the lead, effortlessly reproducing the charisma that served Malcolm X so well, whether in the service of crime or politics. A superb supporting cast includes Angela Bassett as Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, and Lee himself as one of Malcolm X’s early partners in crime. Beautifully photographed by Lee’s longtime cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, Malcolm X has an evocative period ambience and an epic sweep. Lee pulls precious few punches here, bringing the great man’s frequently confrontational politics directly to the screen. The result is a film that angered many, touched many more, and is perhaps the most important film ever made about the black experience in America. Gregory Baird