BLACKkKLANSMAN

Spike Lee's 2018 BlackkKlansman is an angry refutation to President Trump's remarks on civil disorder in Charlottesville, Virginia.  As everyone recalls, Trump proposed a false equivalence between the neo-Nazi demonstrators and ANTIFA-dominated counter-demonstrators, telling the world that "there were very fine people" on both sides.  (His remarks would have been better phrased as "there were violent thugs on both sides.")  Spike Lee's movie is a categorical rejection of the concept that there were "fine people" protesting within the White Supremicist ranks, but he proceeds, as did Trump, by creating a rhetorical system that compares the two opposing groups, drawing, indeed, some equivalences.  For instance, both groups have fiery speakers, are totally segregated by race, and indulge in violent rhetoric -- both have a tendency to raise their arms or fists in the air and are obsessed with ancient grievances.  These comparisons exist however to be invidious to the Klansmen:  the Black activists are all handsome, well-groomed, stylishly dressed, intelligent, and, even, excellent dancers -- the Klansmen are scrawny rednecks or plump, slack-jawed cretins, wearing dirty and offensively-labeled tee-shirts, and all of them are morons.  It's Spike's movie and all of this is, perhaps, fair and, maybe, even, realistic.  But would it offend Lee's sensibilities if one of the feckless rednecks could dance a little.? The Black activists are lead by beautiful young women (no sexism here); the White Supremicists are verbally abusive to their women and the one wife who is allowed a speaking role is overweight and dressed in frumpy clothing.  (We have reached a level of polarization in this country that compels even reasonable-minded people to deny even a shred of humanity to their enemies.  One brilliant writer that I know has publicly decreed that Republicans can't dance -- first, because they are physically uncouth and lacking in grace, and secondarily, because no one in his, or her, right mind would dance with such bigoted  louts.  This seems to be carrying a grudge a little too far.)  These reservations aside BlackkKlansman is an exuberant polemic, filled with interesting expressionistic underlining to points already shouted to the audience both loudly and clearly.  Lee has always been an excellent filmmaker and he, generally, makes movies that turn out better than his rather cartoonish political themes might suggest.  He gets good performances, stages scenes effectively, and, for better or worse, his political agenda is clear, undisguised and lucidly presented -- you know what he's getting at, he makes his points effectively, and you can take it or leave it as you are inclined.  BlackkKlansman  is interesting, has an excellent (if somewhat chaotic) ending, and in an era of political despair leaves its audience optimistic and reinvigorated.

The vehicle for Lee's political and social screed is a peculiar but true story -- Lee inserts a title to the effect that this "crazy shit" is "sho nuff" true.  A Black man named Ron Stallworth applies for work with the Colorado Springs police force.  He is warned that he may suffer racists taunts from other cops and, indeed, some of the police persecute him.  But, by and large, he is treated reasonably and, in fact, recognizing his intelligence, he is assigned undercover work.  His first assignment is covering a rally in which a Black activist, Kwame Ture, the man formerly named Stokely Carmichael, speaks to the college Black Student Union.  At the rally, Stallworthy meets a beautiful young activist and she supplies the romantic interest throughout the film -- Lee isn't really interested in the relationship and gives it short shrift on screen:  it's perfunctory, but does supply a damsel in distress subtext late in the film.  On a whim, Stallworthy calls the local Ku Klux Klan and volunteers himself for service.  To his surprise, the local Klan is enthusiastic and encourages him to join.  (Stallworthy has inadvertently given his real name.)  The police force, happy to infiltrate the Klan, conscripts a Jewish cop, Philip "Flip" Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to impersonate Stallworthy.  Flip goes to Klan meetings and is a big hit with the bigots -- notwithstanding his somewhat Semitic appearance, Flip impresses everyone with the vehemence of his hatred for niggers and kikes.  Hitler used to claim that he could smell a Jew and one of the yokels in the Klan seems to have this ability as well so that he immediately suspects that Flip is an informer.  There are some close-calls but, by and large, the charade is successful.  Ultimately, the hillbilly develops proof that Flip is an imposter.  David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Klan has come to town, primarily, it seems to welcome Stallworthy into the ranks of the Invisible Empire.  The counter-protestors at the Student Union have invited Harry Belafonte to give a talk about lynching.  He provides a horrific account of a lynching, complete with poster-sized photographs, while the Klansmen, with Duke at their center, watch The Birth of a Nation and cheer for the on-screen hooded knights as they murder and terrorize Black people.  These two events are cross-cut and the action becomes increasingly delirious as the wife of one of the Klansmen attempts to plant a bomb, threatening Stallworthy's activist girlfriend.  Stallworthy thwarts the bombing and tackles the fat white woman carrying the C4 explosive.  But the local cops come to the woman's rescue, and, in an alarming scene, beat up Stallworthy.  Flip comes to Stallworthy's rescue.  There is a coda involving the arrest of the racist cop who has been tormenting Stallworthy.  Lee wants his audience to leave the audience electrified and, so, he saves his big effects for the finale -- there is a knock on the door and Stallworthy and his girlfriend with guns drawn advance down an expressionistically imagined corridor to a window through which they see a KKK cross burning.  The film, then, shows us the cross-burning and the Klansmen in rapturous positions raising their open arms to the flames.  Lee, then, cuts to the fighting between protesters at Charlottesville, shows Trump making his idiotic remarks, and, then, dedicates the film to Heather Heyer, the woman killed in that demonstration.  Throughout the film, Lee insists on the power of movies to make a difference -- if, as he correctly tells us, Griffith's Birth of a Nation, revived the moribund Klan in the twenties, then, so, he implies his film may be it's death knell.  The picture is stylishly directed and takes on the characteristics of an allegory or fable -- Harry Belafonte is very recognizably Harry Belafonte and his appearance in the movie establishes the sense that the issues addressed are timeless in American history:  racism always exists and is always more or less the same.  The dance scenes early in the movie are gratuitous to its point but they demonstrate the grace and athletic beauty of the Black people -- everything is shot in warm red light in a disco and the sequence is filmed in slow-motion at times:  it's an ecstatic account of community solidarity and the notion that "Black is Beautiful."  (Lee has previously dramatized this in a series of gorgeous portrait close-ups during speech at the Union.)  Lee isn't really interested in action and the car chases at the film's end seems merely obligatory.  He plays homage to the Blaxploitation films of the period -- the movie is set in 1971 on the basis of campaign posters for Nixon and Agnew that decorate the Klan meetings (some of Lee's points aren't too subtle.)  At the end of the movie, Stallworthy and his girlfriend are magically transformed into Black avengers, action heroes who are both armed as they glide surrealistically down the long hallway to the door overlooking the faraway cross-burning.  As with all of Lee's movies, the film has a majestic soundtrack by Terence Blanchard -- in one scene, we watch Klansmen blasting away at targets with their shotguns and 45s.  The scene is staged so that we never see what they are shooting.  After the Klansmen depart the firing range, Stallworthy appears in the autumnal forest.  The music swells to a powerful and grave threnody.  At last, we get the reverse shot:  the men have been shooting holes in silhouette pickaninnies mounted in a row against the golden and yellow trees:  the pickaninnies look like Kara Walker cut-outs and the music imparts a powerful sense of both sorrow and defiance to the image.   Lee ends the film with a ballad powerfully performed by the late, great Prince.  Although most of the film is political comedy, the movie also displays a powerful undercurrent of grief.