“Ron Stallworth, are you for the revolution
and the liberation of black people?”
[music playing]
Spike Lee is one of the most iconic filmmakers
of our time.
So it might surprise you to learn that, after an influential 30-year film career,
he has only just scored his first Oscar nominations
for Best Picture and Best Director this year -- for BlacKkKlansman.
Which leads us to wonder: why is this the film that
finally got through to the Academy?
[on phone] “I’m just happy to be talking to a pure white American.”
“Amen.”
On the one hand there’s a simple explanation:
the Oscars’ penchant for delayed recognition,
or “make-up awards”, like when they gave
Martin Scorsese Best Director for The Departed to
really acknowledge his earlier masterful films,
or how Leonardo DiCaprio’s Best Actor win for The Revenant
was generally understood to be a kind of lifetime achievement award.
So we might say Lee’s nominations are righting the wrong of overlooking
1989’s Do the Right Thing and his other films since.
Still, BlacKkKlansman is a significant work
in its own right from a mature director
who’s achieved mastery over his medium and message –
and is still at the top of his game.
“Even though the…. story took place in the 70’s,
I still thought it was a great opportunity
to comment on the world we live today
with Agent Orange in the White House.”
So we’re going to walk you through
the most salient things about this movie
and how it shows the director doing
what he does best:
proving that film has power, and speaking about today
in signature Spike Lee style.
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In many ways, Blackklansman is the quintessential Spike Lee joint,
featuring all the director’s most recognizable trademarks.
In our Spike Lee video we talked about
Lee’s distinctive techniques—
so now let’s look at how BlacKkKlansman harnesses these
to full effect:
[cheering] “White Power! White Power!”
[cheering] “Black Power! Black Power!”
We hear:
“Why don’t you wake up?”
Almost all of Lee’s films issue this command
“Waaaaake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.”
“Wake up.”
“Waaaaaaaaake uuuuuuuup.”
Here, it comes right after Ron and his colleague
discuss the possibility of David Duke running for office—
in a clear nod to President Trump.
“America would never elect somebody like David Duke
president of the United States of America.”
Many in the past thought the Trump presidency
inconceivable,
“There’s not gonna be a president Donald Trump.
That’s not gonna happen.”
just as we in the present may be watching this movie about the 70s,
comfortably feeling that the worst of racism in America
is behind us.
So in this moment, BlacKkKlansman issues
a wake-up call, urging us not to be so naive.
“Coming from a black man, that’s pretty naïve.”
There’s a double dolly shot— Lee’s signature tracking shot—
where both the actor and the camera are put on dollies,
so it looks like the characters are floating
or being propelled forward.
This is what makes Ron and Patrice appear to glide down the hallway at the end,
where they see the burning cross outside, followed by,
real footage of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
and the attack that killed Heather Heyer.
Lee often incorporates real photos or video footage
to remind us how his movie connects to the real world.
Ending with the Charlottesville footage
is a way of showing that not only are white supremacists
still active in our world today, they’re not even hiding anymore.
“With this guy in the white house, he’s made it okay
for these supremacists, white supremacists
to come out in the open.
They’re coming out from under rocks and
he’s legitimizing them.
I wouldn’t even call it a dog-whistle, he’s like on a bullhorn.”
There’s a nuanced look at race through an idiosyncratic lens.
“God bless white America.”
Lee plays up the exaggerated, absurdist feel of these events,
letting us laugh off this exaggerated portrayal
of these characters who are set in the past,
only to pull the rug out from under us
as he reveals that they’re all too real and current.
David Duke may seem silly and cartoonish,
“I consider you a true white, American hero.”
“Is there any other kind?”
but at the end of the film we’re reminded that
this is an actual person who is still active and dangerous today.
“This is the first step toward taking America back.”
It puts forth a dialogue between the radical
who wants to tear down the system
versus the moderate who seeks change inside the system.
“We fight for what black people really need – black liberation.”
“Right, right. So, can't you do that from the inside?”
“No, you can't.
The white man won't give up his position in power without a struggle.”
In many ways BlacKkKlansman is a companion piece
to Lee’s most iconic movie, Do the Right Thing.
That earlier work offered a devastating critique
of police brutality in a black neighborhood.
[screaming]
But here, Ron is proud to be part of the police force.
“I always wanted to be a cop,
and I'm still for the liberation of my people.”
It’s not that the circumstances have changed all that much
since Do the Right Thing—
police brutality in America is still dire today.
What we’re seeing here is Lee’s personal evolution.
In Do the Right Thing, Lee aligned himself
with the radical side of the debate.
[crashing]
“In this day and age, in the year of our Lord 1989,
I’m leaning more toward the philosophies of Malcolm X.”
In the nearly 30 years since, the director may have become
more open to working within the system
for more moderate, stable progress.
“Don't think, just because I don't wear
a black beret or a black leather jacket,
black Ray-Bans, screaming, ‘Kill Whitey,’
that I don't care about my people.”
Sorry to Bother You director Boots Riley
criticized BlacKkKlansman’s representation of the police,
saying, quote,
“For Spike to come out with a movie where story points
are fabricated in order to make a Black cop and his counterparts
look like allies in the fight against racism
is really disappointing.”
But Lee isn’t arguing that all cops are on the right side of justice.
“Now we are being shot down like dogs, in the streets by
white racist cops.”
And most crucially, wherever Lee stands personally
in this conversation, he continues to give a voice
to both sides of this debate in his movie,
just as he always has.
“So you think all cops are racist?”
“It only takes one to pull a trigger on an innocent sister or brother.”
It references film history.
BlacKkKlansman opens with a scene from Gone with the Wind,
the Civil War epic that, if you adjust for inflation,
is still the highest grossing movie ever made.
We also see footage from The Birth of a Nation,
D. W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film.
“Back then they’d call that kind of movie a blockbuster.
Everybody saw it.”
Lee uses these movies to remind us of cinema’s racist legacy –
how the medium has been used to dehumanize black people and
promote a sympathetic view of the Confederacy.
Lee also references the Blaxploitation genre,
in stylistic nods like the repetition of the musical theme,
[music playing]
and explicitly in the script.
“Shaft or Super Fly?”
“What?”
“Pick one.”
“A private detective over a pimp any day
and twice on Sundays.”
Blaxploitation movies were inherently contradictory,
they were empowering on some level, because they made cool,
self-determining black characters the heroes,
“Where are my manners?
I didn’t even introduce myself to you gentleman.
My name is— John Shaft.
Freeze.”
but at the same time, as the genre’s name implies,
these films played up certain damaging stereotypes.
“That image does damage to our people.”
“Geez, it's a movie. Give it a rest.”
“I can’t let it rest.”
So through all these movie references,
the director is reminding us that – while we might think of
cinematic history as an academic topic removed from our everyday –
movies have real power in our society.
After all, The Birth of a Nation is what revived the Ku Klux Klan in the first place.
“It was so powerful that it gave the Ku Klux Klan a rebirth.”
But by responding via his own film, Lee takes control,
shaping our perceptions through cinema himself.
“There is one film missing from this list,
that deserves to be on it, because ironically,
it might tell the biggest truth of all, and that’s Do The Right Thing.”
The year that Do the Right Thing
was excluded from most categories at the Oscars,
Best Picture went to Driving Miss Daisy.
Now BlacKkKlansman is up against Green Book,
which some have called this year’s Driving Miss Daisy.
Both driving movies are well-made and touching,
but they offer up a more or less sanitized version
of race relations from the perspective of a white person,
with a neat “racism is solved” ending.
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Me too.”
“Well that’s about all there is to it then.”
Meanwhile, looking back, we can’t help but find
Do the Right Thing even more truthful
and prescient than was clear at the time –
it remains shockingly relevant to this day.
“We had the crystal ball.
I mean I think we predicted what happened with the L.A. riots.”
So we see history repeating itself – in the news, at the box office
and at the Academy Awards.
Lee’s film gets this, and intentionally draws parallels
between the past and our present.
We hear plays on the language of right now.
“America first.”
“We had to find things in the script that automatically
ring bells in people’s heads like that s--- is happening right now.”
Near the end, we see the racist cop get his comeuppance.
“I’m gonna bust a cap in your black ass
if I feel like it and nothing will be done about it.”
“Jimmy, did you get it?”
“Oh yes I got it.”
“Flip, did you get it?”
“Oh yeah, I got it.”
“Chief, did you get it?”
“Oh I really, really get it.
You’re under arrest.”
“What?”
While Ron is celebrated.
“There he is, man of the minute.”
“Don’t you mean hour, Flip?”
It’s one of those neat endings, where racism appears solved,
like we might recognize from a lot of movies on this subject,
but this is Lee faking us out before he goes on to underline
that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
It may be demoralizing to recognize how little
lasting progress we can point to –
but the best thing we can do is to heed
Spike Lee’s eternal command: and “wake up.”
The first step is becoming conscious, and remaining aware –
if we want to solve this problem, we have to face it head-on.
“We must unite and we must organize
to form a base to fight racism.”
BlacKkKlansman cleverly links the idea of “passing”,
“It's what some light-skinned black folks do.
They pass for white.”
with going undercover.
“You undercover or something?”
This comes through in the way that Flip
conceals his Jewish identity,
“You're Jewish, brother.
The so-called chosen people.
You’ve been passing for a WASP.”
and how Ron doesn’t tell Patrice he’s a cop.
“Are you a pig?”
“’Scuse me?”
At one point Flip talks about how pretending to not be Jewish
has made him think more about this part of his identity.
“I never thought much about being Jewish.
Nobody around me was Jewish. Is that passing?
Well, then I have been passing.”
So often we don’t reckon with our “otherness” –
if we have the chance to fit in with mainstream whiteness,
this tends to feel easier than to claim our heritage
or true identities.
“I’m just another white kid.”
Mad men creator Matthew Weiner once said that his show is about, quote,
“Becoming white.
That’s the definition of success in America, becoming a WASP.
A WASP male.”
Even though Don Draper was already of course white,
Weiner is using the concept here to mean something broader—
that aspiration to become the totally accepted insider.
But as BlacKkKlansman shows, sooner or later we run into barriers
that force us to acknowledge “the other” within ourselves.
“They’re going to know the difference between how a
white man talks, and a negro.”
“Well how exactly does a black man talk?”
So the message is that we have to embrace the nuance
and complexity of our identities, instead of disavowing any part of them.
“It is time for you to stop running away
from being black.”
In this story, Ron’s perspective as a black man
makes him a better detective --
because of his experience as an other, he can see things
and transcend boundaries the white police officers can’t.
“Chief, some of us can speak the King's English.
Others speak jive.
Ron Stallworth here, happens to be fluent in both.”
You might notice that this detective story doesn’t really
have a mystery to solve –
the white supremacists are the ones who are
trying to uncover a plot in their midst.
“Now put that f---ing strap on your arm.
Put it on your arm.”
But on a deeper level, the central mystery of this movie
is the question of racism itself.
Why the ideology persists and appeals so overwhelmingly to some,
“All you get now is how we gotta cater to them.
Watch your mouth.
Don’t say this, don’t say that.
and how people use it to justify wrongs –
to willfully blind themselves to the humanity of others.
So by passing, or hiding that
“other” part of yourself, you play right into the agenda of bigotry –
helping further the assumption that to succeed in society
you must essentially “become” white.
“Well, God bless white America.”
“God bless white America, sir.”
Near the end, Ron and Patrice are arguing
about their views on the police.
“Have you handed in your resignation from the Colorado Springs Police Department?”
“Negative.”
But after they hear the knock on the door,
they’re suddenly united.
Because they face a much greater threat
that doesn't distinguish between their differences of opinion –
the KKK doesn’t care whether you're an activist
or a detective.
To them, you are your race.
And Lee’s final message is that, wherever you fall
in the radical versus moderate debate, we’re still ultimately on the same side
–
and we need to be united against racism.
“That ----- detective, did you ever,
did you ever get his name.”
“No, I don’t think I—“
“Are uh, you sure you don’t know who he is.”
Hi guys it’s Susannah.
And Debra.
And we are, The Take.
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