This year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee’s masterpiece, Malcolm X. Here’s Roger Ebert reviewing the film when it debuted in 1992…
…Walking into “Malcolm X,” I expected an angrier film than Spike Lee has made. This film is not an assault but an explanation, and it is not exclusionary; it deliberately addresses all races in its audience. White people, going into the film, may expect to meet a Malcolm X who will attack them, but they will find a Malcolm X whose experiences and motives make him understandable and finally heroic.
Reasonable viewers are likely to conclude that, having gone through similar experiences, they might also have arrived at the same place.
Black viewers will not be surprised by Malcolm’s experiences and the racism he lived through, but they may be surprised to find that he was less one-dimensional than his image, that he was capable of self-criticism and was developing his ideas right up until the day he died.
Spike Lee is not only one of the best filmmakers in America, but one of the most crucially important, because his films address the central subject of race. He doesn’t use sentimentality or political cliches, but shows how his characters live, and why.
Here’s Spike Lee talking about Denzel Washington’s devastating turn in the title role…
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