40 years ago, the Colorado Springs Police Department's first black officer launched
an unprecedented, undercover investigation into the KKK.
35 years later, detective Ron Stallworth detailed his experience of infiltrating
the hate group in his memoir titled Black Klansman.
>> Just four years later, Spike Lee brought the book to the silver screen.
2018's BlacKkKlansman was greeted by critical praise, and
a fair share of controversy.
The movie's up for a handful of Oscars including best picture,
Spike Lee's first nomination for Best Director, and most importantly, for
this show's premise, Best Adapted Screenplay.
>> A lot has changed, politically speaking, since 2014.
So how did Lee update Stallworth's story to reflect our modern political climate?
>> I guess it's time to conduct our own investigation and ask,
what's the difference?
(Laugh) >> There is one very
significant difference that we should address right off the bat, and
that is a distinct difference in tone.
Stallworth writes the book like a police report.
It's a very presentational, just the facts, kind of read.
In the book, Stallworth simply warns of the Klan's potential for
infiltrating the government.
He's very explicit, citing David Dukes election to the Louisiana House of
Representatives in 1989.
>> In the film though, Spike Lee dramatizes Stallworth's fact-based account
of his time undercover and interprets the events to craft a message.
It's just as frank and explicit, but Spike Lee asserts the Klan's philosophies have
already permeated to the highest office.
With the election of Donald Trump and the rise of Alt-Right nationalism in 2017,
Spike Lee concludes in just the few short years since publication,
Stallworth's fears have been fully realized.
>> So it's no wonder that BlacKkKlansman was arguably the most talked-about film in
2018.
And with that, let's get into the story.
>> The film introduces Ron Stallworth in an interview at
the Colorado Springs Police Department as he becomes the first black officer
in the city's history.
Ron is assigned to the records department where he spends all day pulling files and
enduring derogatory slurs from his fellow officers.
The worst offender is a character created for the film,
Master Patrolman Andy Landers.
>> But in the memoir,
Ron Stallworth begins his law enforcement career at the tender age of 19,
becoming the first African American to be enrolled in the Cadet program, woo-hoo.
It's on his 21st birthday that he becomes a full-fledged police officer.
But Ron also confronts prejudice within the department, but
it goes beyond offensive slurs.
When Ron and a coworker compare their celebrity crushes,
the white officer admits that he'd never considered black women in terms of beauty.
>> In both the book and the movie, Ron goes undercover at a speaking event
featuring ex Black Panthers' Stokely Carmichael.
The film deviates from the book by inventing a love interest in the form of
student activist, Patrice.
Not only does Lee utilize her character for a romantic subplot,
she also embodies the black empowerment movement,
and is later put in direct conflict with master patrolman, Andy Landers.
>> But in the book Patrice doesn't exist.
Ron is already dating the woman that would later become his wife.
By creating Patrice and Landers, Spike Lee is able to efficiently represent both
systemic racism and the resistance movement to it.
Stallworth, of course, touches on this conflict throughout his memoir,
but the movie is able to cover most of his commentary by distilling it into these two
characters.
But back in the story, book Ron gets transferred to narcotics and vice,
where he spends three years working cases before investigating the Klan.
>> In the film, the investigation begins shortly after Stallworth's assignment at
the activist rally.
Ron answers a recruitment ad for the KKK by phoning the listed number and
amateurly leaving his real name in a voice message.
>> Did I just hear you use your real name?
(Sound) In the memoir,
Ron answers the ad by mail, but still signs his real name,
not thinking the inquiry was going to lead to an investigation.
>> The movie hyperfocuses on this one investigation involving Ron Stallworth,
his team of agents, and a local chapter of the KKK.
>> The book, however, is much larger in scope, covering more players,
more departments, and a vast network of hate groups and activist organizations.
>> In both mediums, Ron selects a white agent to portray Ron Stallworth during
in-person encounters with the Klan.
In the movie, that man is Flip Zimmerman, who struggles with his Jewish identity,
and begins to evaluate his personal investment in the organization.
>> In the book the agent is known only as Chuck.
Chuck is never described as Jewish.
He's also not the only undercover agent involved in the field.
(Noise) Later their third agent, Jimmy, joins a local KKK chapter and
a fourth agent joins the Denver chapter.
Even Ron himself goes undercover at leftist groups known for
their violent rhetoric, such as the International Committee Against Racism.
>> The movie simplifies, leaving Flip alone in the field to grapple with his
inner conflict as he avoids detection by the Klan members.
>> The Klan members.
>> Yeah, let's talk about these assholes.
>> In the movie, the local Klan consists of the leader, Walter, and
his crew of cartoonish henchmen.
Felix, the right-hand man who's suspicious of Flip from day one,
Felix's enthusiastically racist wife, and this guy who we'll just call Dopey,
even though his name is Ivanhoe in the movie, which is dopey.
>> In the book, the Klan is led by Ken.
Hi, Ken.
Neither he nor the other members are as cartoonish as their movie counterparts.
But Stallworth describes the men as so outlandishly racist and
inept that it crosses into the realm of absurdity.
>> Is that how you light the crosses?
Yeah, I saw it on a James Bond movie.
>> And while neither Felix nor his wife exist in the book, Ken's wife does make
a brief appearance at a meeting and, ironically, is of Mexican heritage.
>> It's during Flip's first Klan meeting that the movie's central threat is
revealed, a possible bombing.
Throughout the case, Ron and his team investigate the validity of
the threat culminating in a climax wherein Ron heroically saves Patrice.
>> But in the book, the Klan's threat is less immediate and tangible.
There are no literal explosions.
The focus is on their desire to expand in ranks and spread their philosophy.
But Ron makes it his purpose to keep their message of hate from reaching the people.
They thwart cross burnings and rallies, they identify Klan members,
battle recruitment efforts in prisons,
and keep volatile clashes between protestors from erupting in the streets.
>> One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is Ron's faux friendship with
Grand Wizard David Duke.
>> Who am I speaking with?
>> This is David Duke.
>> The movie keeps all of the best moments, from their conversations on
the phone, to Duke's visit to Colorado Springs, in which Ron,
assigned as Duke's bodyguard, tricks Duke into posing with him in a friendly photo.
>> Book Ron also feels the high of humiliating David Duke in a photo.
But the good feeling is short lived.
In a chapter omitted from the film, Ron watches Duke convincingly lie with twisted
logic during a televised debate with a black history professor.
Ron recognizes Duke's gift of gab, and it breaks his heart to
see him slip hateful rhetoric into more palatable language.
(Noise) >> In both the book and movie,
the local chapter wants to elect Ron as leader.
Movie Stallworth avoids the situation altogether.
>> But book Stallworth actually considers it, which leads the chief to obsess over
the possible PR nightmare that the investigation in general may cause, and
orders Stallworth to destroy all of the evidence that the investigation ever
existed.
Of course, he ignores that directive and
saves the bulk of the evidence to write the book.
He describes leaving the office as the phone rings but never picks it up.
The investigation is over, and no arrests were ever made.
>> The movie does its best to provide a few satisfying conclusions for
the audience.
The villains are defeated, the racist cop is arrested, and
the investigation ends but not because of the possibility of bad press.
Flip's cover is blown in the chief ends his support due to budget cuts.
And just when you think it's going to fade to black with that ringing phone,
movie Ro picks it up to give David Duke one final humiliation.
>> Are you sure you don't know who he is?
(Laugh) >> Both the book and the movie leave us
with a burning cross, signaling that the Klan is still very much around.
>> In the book, it's lit outside a black-owned nightclub,
the first cross erected since Stallworth infiltrated the Klan.
>> Instead, Spike Lee places the cross outside Ron's home.
A stylized dolly shot indicates Lee is about to break away from the narrative
reality, cutting to real life footage of the White Nationalist march and
subsequent violence in Charlottesville.
It's a wake up call for everyone watching.
White supremacy is alive and well in America.
Ron Stallworth's warnings from 2014 have turned into Spike Lee's message in 2019,
and it is fucking terrifying.
>> So that's how Spike Lee adapts this unlikely story of an investigation into
the Klan.
He narrows the focus, adds a love plot,
gives the white agent skin in the game, invents more tangible threats, and
provides real world examples of the dangers of white supremacy in America.
But the artistic license Spike Lee employs goes one step further.
There's a meta-narrative at play here as well.
>> One of the film's most effective sequences features Harry Belafonte telling
the very true story of Jesse Washington in the early 1900s,
and his lynching while some 15,000 people watched.
In the film, the story is intercut with a Klan induction ceremony,
giving us an image of an audience learning about the horrors of the past while
the Klan is literally plotting against them.
>> Of course, this sequence doesn't take place in Ron Stallworth's book, but
it is a perfect example of the difference between a man's memoir and
the film inspired by it.
Perhaps the intention of including the scene was to put us in the same situation
as the students listening to Harry Belafonte's character.
Today, just like then, we're learning about the horrors of the past,
while White Nationalists are plotting.
(Music)
>> That's it for this episode.
Be sure to like this video and subscribe to CineFix for more What's the Difference?
(Music)