Word: malcolms
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...Malcolm's style was cooler than King's, more lawyerly than evangelical; its bitter logic cut like a knife at the throat of complacent white America. Even in the time of Malcolm's most toxic demagoguery -- defaming liberals as white devils, civil rights heroes as Uncle Toms and Jews for sapping "the very lifeblood of the so-called Negroes to maintain the state of Israel" -- his steely charisma beguiled the white media. In Harlem he was something more than a diversion: he was the prophet of the black male underclass. "It was manhood time," says Al Freeman Jr., who played...
...could have scared folks by foregrounding Malcolm's seductive racism. But he takes the safe route, viewing his subject less as a flamethrower of incendiary rhetoric than as a victim. Until his late break with the Black Muslims, Malcolm is mostly a tool: of white racists, black gangsters, jail- cell preachers and the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm's uniqueness is lost, his personality blurred. He begins as Little and ends as X: still the unknown...
...picture, an entrepreneur of scalding emotions -- than a director. As such, he is not one to attend to the shading of character. As Washington says, "He basically left me alone and let me run with it." Lee's moods had opposite effects on the excellent actresses who play Malcolm's wife and his white hussy. "He laughs, laughs large," says Angela Bassett (Betty). "He's energy plus." But Kate Vernon (Sophia) says, "He was belligerent and disrespectful in tone toward me. There's a boys' club, and women are not allowed -- especially white women. I hated the idea of feeling...
...would he settle for a Malcolm-like niche in movie history: the radical prophet who achieved his stature posthumously. Lee would rather be a top- grossing auteur now than a biopic subject later. Perhaps that is why his movie is so stately, reverent and academic, so suitable for the Oscars with which Hollywood rewards high-minded mediocrity. Some other director will have to find a way to merge the danger of a brilliant, racist orator with the seismic jolt of energized filmmaking. That picture will be worth skipping school...
Moviegoers may accept Lee's burning logo and tepid melodrama as cinema's vision of Malcolm X now. They can hope for the fire next time...