BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Spike Lee co-writes and directs this comedic drama that, like many of Spike’s films, dips back to the past to comment on the present day. In BlacKkKlansman, based on Ron Stallworth’s memoirs, published in 2014 without the middle ‘k’ in Lee’s title. It was an idea originally pitched to Lee by comedian and film-maker Jordan Peele, who thought Lee’s observations of the era and his own inclinations as a director of note for race relations would be best served to command the story to fruition. Lee thought it was absurd farce and was initially uninterested, until he found out it was a true story. From there, he played up some of those initially farcical feelings, but also incorporated commentary on modern-day racial politics that seeped in at the time of filming.
We go back to the 1970s, where we find Ron Stallworth, the first black police detective working for the Colorado Springs Police Department. In one of his first assignments after laboring behind the scenes to test the waters as a file clerk, Ron is hired to go undercover to record a speech being given locally by black activist Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, at a nearby college, in which the subject is black empowerment, racist law enforcement, and preparation for the race war they feel will be inevitable. The police thought the speech would incite violence, but Ron saw the speech as just talk in that regard, and inspiring otherwise.
Shortly after, Ron sees an advertisement calling for “white empowerment” by the Ku Klux Klan, and he decides to gain information about the town’s chapter of the KKK, posing vocally as a white man by phone to score intel, while a white officer, a non-practicing Jewish fellow undercover narcotics detective, Philip “Flip” Zimmerman (the white officer pretending to be Ron was real, but Zimmerman is not, and also his Jewish heritage is just a narrative device not based on reality), pretends to be the real Ron Stallworth when the local chapter leader asks to meet “Ron” in person to continue the conversation. Risks get sky high as the decision to infiltrate the organization takes hold, as the KKK is not only vehemently against blacks and Jews, but they are set to be targeting the students who’ve organized their own rallies, including Ron’s would-be girlfriend, a local black activist named Patrice Dumas (a fictional character for the movie’s narrative purposes), with real violence that usually is given only lip service at their mutual get-togethers.
From there, Lee captures both the very real dangers of the racial divides, but also the comic qualities of the infiltration, as well as the farcical nature of “The Organization” (as the KKK refers to itself publicly), especially once it incorporates conversation involving KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who ends up making an appearance at the Colorado Springs chapter. The back-and-forth conversations between Duke and Stallworth are rife with ironies, and Lee deliberately draws correlation between the hate speech of the late 1970s, and the sloganeering and speeches that gave rise to a certain president sitting in the White House at the time of his film’s release. The Klansman characters, other than Duke, are fictionalized, as is their terrorist plot to bomb the black activists that culminates in the film’s climax.
Lee doesn’t hold back in the racial epithets or in sugar-coating the vitriol involved in the racist language and actions of the KKK, or in the racism that pervades law enforcement and their treatment of people of color they routinely pull over for no other reason than harassment, depicted here in a quite scary fashion due to Lee’s commitment to characterizations, who keeps them all on the side of the real, even when toying with each one of them as comical caricatures of themselves. Nevertheless, Lee is patient with telling his story, and in not completely portraying one side as without any virtues, even though it is obvious that he views Kwame Ture as inspiring and David Duke as a buffoon whose only source of danger is that he recruits many people into a cause of power to assure that people of color, or of certain faiths, do not get to be a part of the “great America” and “pure race” as they see it.
Scenes from films like Gone with the Wind and the first narrative, The Birth of a Nation, all establish to the viewer the decades of “white might” that had been a casually accepted norm, something that many people find shocking when looking back at cinema’s use for perpetuating the racial views of bygone eras to new generations of people. In many respects, the film also casts a critical eye on how black people have had to question themselves on having to perpetuate a racist system – whether as an actor, a cop, or the wait staff at a Klan event – and trying to change it from within, whether through assurance that they aren’t the enemy, or in taking down the system with a much ballyhooed revolution.
If anything, BlacKkKlansman is a mature Lee work, where he picks his spots to reveal his inner outrage at the underpinnings of racism within American society that have been dormant for so long, and have been revealed in the current election cycle n which one candidate employs dog-whistle politics to draw out the alt-right crowds to his cause. The film ends on a powerful note with real-life footage of the march from white nationalists gathered to “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, including bits of the speech from President Trump as well as the older David Duke in their similar responses to the violence that erupted and claimed one life there. It’s a potent gut-punch reminder of how the seeds of racism planted from the country’s inception continue to bear wicked fruit when given nourishment from the likes of our political leaders more than willing to exploit the racial divides for their own purposes.
Race relations are certainly a main staple within a Spike Lee joint, but not all of his attempts have been as inclusive to the mainstream moviegoer, such as Chi-Raq, which was just as potent and relevant but didn’t preach to anyone not already in the choir. Do the Right Thing perhaps will always be the pinnacle in Lee’s career in this regard, but BlacKkKlansman, outside of its provocative title, is certainly as accessible to most moviegoers who aren’t wearing MAGA hats, or Klan hoods (i.e., people who think “Black Power” and “White Power” constitute the same thing in America probably will never understand). Lee sees the humor, not only in the undercover cop case, but also in the absurdity of a white power movement in a country that has always had white power, and the profundity in a “Black is beautiful” movement in which white features are always heralded as the pinnacle of beauty.
Beyond the messaging, the film features terrific actors, beautiful photography (on film, which is more a rarity these days), and a powering score. For many reasons, both as cinema and as social commentary, it’s an eye-opener and further proof that Spike Lee is one of the most important voices on race in our day.
Qwipster’s rating: A
MPAA Rated: R for language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material and some sexual references
Running Time: 135 min.
Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Robert John Burke, Frederick Weller, Jasper Paakkonen, Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser, Ashley Atkinson, Brian Tarantina, Corey Hawkins, Harry Belafonte, Michael Buscemi
Small role: Alex Baldwin, Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Director: Spike Lee
Screenplay: Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee