Malcolm X

Customer Reviews:

• Read The Book!!!: I love Malcolm, I love Spike, I love Denzel...I grew up on the street Malcolm was born on, in North Omaha, Pinkney Street, BUT...the movie is lacking...Read The Book!!! It is a revelation.
• Malcolm X: It was great and it showed how Malcolm X evolved as a person. I loved it.
• Still germane: Epic films about influential martyrs who die young, whether the subject is Lincoln, JFK, or Malcolm, rarely attract my attention or hold my interest. The best one can hope for is that a point of view stops short of propaganda, that it doesn't fall prey to a white-washing, or black-washing, of a story that has already taken on the stuff that mythic dreams are made of. Lee's movie and Washington's performance are both so powerful that one can easily forgive many of the broad strokes, enjoy the film, and evaluate the sum effect--which at least has the potential to bring about a fuller understanding of race and religion than the daily political-media noise to which most of us are otherwise continually exposed.
  
  Malcolm comes across as a practicing idealist, a man of the highest integrity and most rigorous discipline capable of realizing his vision of a brotherhood whose awareness of its lineage will bring forth the very best moral intentions and practices. Although the problematic divisions of Islam into Sunni (Malcolm's alignment) and Shia, along with the distinctions between Islam and the Nation of Islam, are merely suggested and the break with Elijah Muhammad due to the latter's "woman problem" is glossed over, in the end the movie's importance rises above attention to such details. Malcolm is a hero, a role model and, most importantly, the inspiration for a meaningful, potentially constructive, mythic legacy that, like similar narratives centered on Lincoln or JFK, cannot outsize its human source beyond the point of credibility.
  
  If one accepts the current tendency of the population to bifurcate its citizenry into black and white, the hope has to be that those who see themselves as black will see in Malcolm's separatism not segregation and exclusionary practices but a rallying cry to accept one's identity as a full-fledged member of a human race empowered to pursue and achieve excellence regardless of (not because of) color. What Malcolm perceived as a flaw (his white genes transmitted by rape through his mother) became, after all, his strength. As for those members of the audience who identify themselves as white, the hope has to be that the uneasy feelings provoked by Malcolm's stance of separatism will bring about self-recognition of the assault to personal worth brought about not simply by exclusionary practices or the publicized statements of a "social radical," but by generations of whites practicing "Biblically sanctioned," legislatively licensed segregation.
  
  At its best, cinema has the potential to be a reflective screen, a mirror of our social and private lives, exposing the best and worst in us all. Individually, few figures in America's history have so effectively mirrored "white America" to itself as Malcolm X. Together, the two--film and Malcolm--make for a potent mix, a powerful chemistry that, we can only hope, will continue to exert its clarifying powers on the diversely colored stage that is being set for the coming year's test of a nation's ability to practice the democracy that it professes to prize above all else.
• Awesome Movie: This is one of the most powerful movies I have ever seen. I love it. Spike Lee did a fabulous job in putting Malcolm X's autobiography into film. I also highly recommend the book. It's got WAY more information in it (obviously) and is an excellent read.
• The Complex Life of an Iconic Figure: This bio-pic of the one-time Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X is over three hours of richly textured history enlivened by a virtuoso performance by Denzel Washington. From Malcolm's earliest days as the son of an outspoken preacher to his assassination in front of his wife and children, the film traces the evolving philosophies of one of the most influential men of the civil rights movement. When Malcolm legally changes his surname to X, we understand why. When he declares that blacks and whites should be completely segregated, we know where he is coming from. When he renounces his ties with the Nation of Islam and creates his own Islamic organization, we see why this was so necessary, despite the danger. Director Spike Lee carefully constructs the story of a fallible, intelligent, and driven man that disputes much of the media package presented to white America at the time.
  
  You definitely need a comfortable chair for this marathon of a film. Although it probably could have been edited down to less than three hours by condensing some of the earlier scenes, such omissions would have lessened the impact of Malcolm's early days as a man in search of pleasure and easy money, values that directly conflicted with his later, righteous persona. Based on the "autobiography" written with Alex Haley, the screenplay manages to humanize a man who was often publicly demonized.
  
  I can't find fault with any of the performances - all were excellent - but Angela Bassett as Malcolm's wife stands out. The cinematography is sweeping, with a sepia palette for Malcolm's pre-Islamic days, and conveys in gorgeous, riveting images the power of the man and his cause. The special features, though worth watching, would be best left for another sitting, since the film demands introspection afterward. Interestingly, Washington does such a fantastic job at channeling Malcolm that viewers will be amazed when watching actual footage.
  
  This is a must-see film for anyone with a serious interest in cinema, civil rights, and/or biopics.