BlacKKKlansman

Dir: Spike Lee

2018

*****

In July 2015 screenwriters/co-producers Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz discovered the book Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. They interviewed Stallworth and wrote a spec screenplay before pitching the script to producers Shaun Redick and Ray Mansfield. They brought the property to QC Entertainment, which had co-produced the successful 2017 film Get Out. QC Entertainment again teamed up with Jason Blum's company Blumhouse Productions, and Jordan Peele's company Monkeypaw Productions, to produce the project. There was only one man for the job, Mr Spike Lee. Lee didn’t 100% stick to the book or the true story as it was for various reasons but mainly because the events mean more than what they are, that is, Lee made slight artistic changes to highlight the similarities in attitude between then and now and why something that happened decades ago is even more relevant now. The date of events was changed to explore certain political truths that effected much of the story which I think is fair as far as bridging certain gaps is concerned. Politics is a slow burning monster, what is happening today will effect us in ten years time, so I’m okay with film makers pressing rewind and fast forward when certain subjects are key to the story. That said, very few directors do it well, Lee being one of the exceptions. Spike Lee’s films are called Spike Lee joints, which may seem arrogant to some but I have no problem with it as each of his films are unique in that they share a certain signature style. The change of date was also so Lee could envelop the Blaxploitation style that was prominent in the early 70s, a good few years before Ron Stallworth’s story began. Lee plays with trends, fashion and stereotype in challenging his viewer without over-complicating anything, meaning his films are open to all. His biggest critics are usually his biggest fans and those that are strongly influenced by him but for me he pretty much gets it spot on every time and is probably the director who is taken out of context the most, maybe just behind Lars von Trier. In 1979, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) was hired as the first black detective in the Colorado Springs, Colorado police department. Stallworth was initially assigned to work in the records room, where he faced mistreatment from his coworkers. Stallworth requested a transfer to go undercover, and was assigned to infiltrate a local rally by national civil rights leader, Kwame Ture, who has taken the name of African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré. At the rally, Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), the president of the black student union at Colorado College. While taking Ture to his hotel, Patrice is stopped by patrolman Andy Landers, a corrupt, racist officer in Stallworth's precinct, who threatens Ture and sexually assaults Patrice. After the rally, Stallworth is reassigned to the intelligence division. While reading the paper, he finds an advertisement to join the Ku Klux Klan. Stallworth calls and pretends to be a white man, and speaks with Walter Breachway, the president of the Colorado Springs chapter. Stallworth recruits his Jewish coworker, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), to act as him in order to meet the Ku Klux Klan members in person. Zimmerman attends a meeting and meets Walter (Ryan Eggold), along with the more radicalized member Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Pääkkönen). Zimmerman also speaks with another member named Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser), who cryptically refers to an upcoming attack. Zimmerman and Stallworth continue to cultivate their relationship with the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. Calling Klan headquarters in Louisiana to expedite his membership, Stallworth speaks with David Duke (Topher Grace), the Grand Wizard, with whom he begins regular conversations on the phone. Kendrickson makes Zimmerman take a "Jewish lie detector test" at gunpoint, but Stallworth throws a rock through the Kendrickson family window to distract everyone. Stallworth begins dating Patrice, but does not tell her that he is a police officer. David Duke visits Colorado Springs for Stallworth's induction into the Klan. Despite his protests, the real Stallworth is assigned to provide security for Duke. After Zimmerman, masquerading as Stallworth, is initiated, Felix's wife Connie leaves the ceremony to place a bomb at a civil rights rally. Stallworth realizes her intentions, and alerts local police officers. Felix directs Connie to use their back up plan of placing the bomb at Patrice's house. Before Connie can place the bomb, Patrice arrives home, causing Connie, who was unable to fit the bomb in the mailbox, to run and place the bomb under Patrice's car instead. Stallworth arrives at the scene and tackles Connie, but is immediately detained and beaten by uniformed police officers, despite his protests and claim to be an undercover police officer. Felix, Ivanhoe, and bomb maker Walker, who had recognized Zimmerman as an undercover cop, arrive and park next to Patrice's car, and, thinking the bomb is on the porch, detonate it, unintentionally killing themselves in the process. Zimmerman arrives and frees Stallworth, while Connie is arrested. While celebrating the arrests, Stallworth tricks a drunken Landers into bragging about what he did to Patrice, recording it on a hidden wiretap; Landers is then arrested. Police Chief Bridges congratulates the team for their successful operation, but orders them to discontinue. As he is packing up, Stallworth receives one last call from Duke. Stallworth reveals to Duke that he is a black man before hanging up. Later, in a rather sobering finale to the story, Patrice and Stallworth discuss their future together, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door. Through the window, they see a large flaming cross on a distant hillside surrounded by Klan members. The film then closes with footage from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, including footage of the white supremacists, David Duke, counter-protesters, the car attack that killed one woman and injured many others, and President Trump's statements after the events. The film ends with a memorial to Heather Heyer, the car attack victim, and an upside-down American flag, which fades to black and white. After a relatively light-hearted film, it is a sobering bump back to reality. I’m not American but seeing the upside-down American flag – and knowing what such a statement means – was quite something. Racism is alive and well in the heart of America and indeed, across the globe. It was nice seeing Stallworth stick it to David Duke but the reality is that he didn’t, Duke only found out Stallworth was black just before the film came out. Duke is now more powerful then he has ever been. One of my favorite moments of the film shows contrasting scenes: one with the great Harry Belafonte as Jerome Turner, telling a story of a lynching he witnessed as a child and scenes from the KKK meeting where everyone cheers to a showing of D.W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. It is predominantly a comedy about a provocative subject that makes you feel comfortable, as most people who will see it are on the right side of society. It then wakes you up from your popcorn-induced slumber and reminds you that today is tomorrow’s history and silence is complicity. Lee has been criticized for not going further but Lee is an intelligent man and has made an intelligent film with several layers that he leaves the viewer to unravel, although it isn’t hard to follow. The script says so much more than just pictures, indeed, we need more stories and words than just pictures, as pictures aren’t as dependable as they once were. John David Washington and Adam Driver is excellent and I always admire actors who play such villainous and detestable people – the cast is faultless. I think Lee has found the perfect balance here, referencing all sorts of commercial, social and cultural themes to a true picture of where we were then and where we are today. A true return to form for the great director.