Best Film of 2018: Blackkklansman
Spike Lee made the best film of 2018 with Blackkklansman. He took a true life story with an incredible premise - a black man infiltrates the KKK - and then pulls no punches in crafting an artistic, funny, overtly political, gut-wrenching, and chilling drama that should be awarded all the accolades it deserves. America has a sinful problem with race and Lee confronts the issues - sometimes head on and sometimes subtly - in his storytelling. At one point, he reclaims a film technique that at its inception was used to dramatize the subjugation of black people, a glorious moment that demonstrates Spike Lee is a sophisticated filmmaker at the top of his artistic and political game.
In 1972, Ron Stallworth is hired as the first black cop on the Colorado Springs Police Department. He faces the normalized racism from his fellow police officers and is asked to take on undercover assignments that monitor his fellow black citizens. During his first job at a civil rights rally, he meets Patrice Dumas, the president of the black student union at Colorado College, and they begin a relationship. The next day after the rally, he calls the local leader of the Ku Klux Klan and begins an infiltration operation; the only challenge - he is a black man. He then recruits his Jewish co-worker named Flip Zimmerman to pair in the enterprise - Stallworth interacts with the Klan on the phone and Zimmerman goes to the in-person meetings. During their assignment, Stallworth has several calls with David Duke, the national Grand Wizard of the KKK, and the two police officers discover a plot to set off a bomb at another civil rights rally. They work together to successfully shut down the incompetent KKK members and, with the plot foiled, the two hope to continue their operation on a national level. The Chief of Police, however, shuts the investigation down, but not before Stallworth reveals to Duke that he was in fact a black man this whole time. In a jarring twist, the film ends with images of white supremacists marching on Charlottesville in 2017, providing a gut punch and forces the viewer to ask - how much progress have we even made in the last 50 years?
Lee has crafted an incredibly rich film, steeped both in film history references, while at the same time expertly composing sequences designed to celebrate black history and culture. One standout moment that demonstrates Lee’s imaginative technical craft, his challenge to traditional narrative, and the emotional weight of black pride, is the sequence of Kwame Ture (Carmichael Stokely)’s rally speech. The shots of him delivering the speech were already electric and powerful, but then Lee intercuts shots of black faces, listening raptly, with beautiful lighting illuminating their faces; they are lifted in pride, featuring faces to be seen and - mirroring Ture’s speech - to be heard. “If I’m not for myself, who will be?” he thunders to a rapt audience, both those attending the speech and those watching the screen.
Lee employs this technique - breaking the traditional narrative with additional material that also comments on the content of the scene - in more moments throughout the film. When Ron and Patrice are early in their relationship and strolling outside on a sunny Colorado day, they get to talking about blaxploitation films and their differing takes on whether their people should work inside or against the system to create change. The natural lighting provides a magnificent glow on this new couple, with the sun creating an exquisite halo around Patrice’s afro that highlights her uniquely black beauty. As they discuss a litany of blaxploitation films, the posters for the movies appear on screen, simultaneously providing a reference point for the audience, but also celebrating the design of the artwork. This scene brings together the script, acting, cinematography, editing, and overlay elements to create a moment that addresses art, politics, black life, a new relationship, and the best methods to demand change in society.
The standout scene of the entire film is one where Lee not only references film history, but he reclaims the cross-cutting editing technique that was quite famously used within The Birth of a Nation (1915) by D.W. Griffith. This film, while a landmark in cinema history due to its many innovative filmmaking techniques, is downright racist in its storytelling of America during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. In Blackkklansman, Lee constructs a sequence that juxtaposes gatherings of white and black groups, cross-cutting between scenes to contrast the evil of the Klan against the struggle of black people in America. One scene follows black activists listening to an old veteran, portrayed by Harry Belefonte, telling the story of a young black kid being beaten by the Klan; he even brings up the film The Birth of a Nation, telling his audience the film was screened at the White House, which gave it national recognition. The parallel scene follows the current gathering of the Klan with their secret initiation rituals, asserting their belief in white power, and then literally WATCHING The Birth of a Nation onscreen and reveling in the KKK appearances. In this brilliant sequence, Lee exposes the history of racial discrimination that has been part of cinema since it’s transformative years, while reclaiming the time-tested technique as an instrument to display that same racism as alive in 1970s America (and as viewers can extrapolate - to current day).
Lee uses the film to both subtly and explicitly reveal the deep seeded legacy that pervades the politics of Trump - there are frequent uses of his favorite slogans and phrases (“America First”) that come out of the mouths of white supremacists with eagerness and sincerity. Even the ADR background voices peddle in Trump rhetoric. Conversations throughout the film reveal that the true aim of the KKK is to get men of their ilk into government, with the highest aim of the White House. Watching the film with the reality of 2018 as the context make the pushback ring hollow - American would never vote in such a man. Yet we did.
The current times weigh heavy on the viewer of Blackkklansmen.
And those last five minutes. The mood changes, and the stomach drops. We are no longer in an enhanced history turned to fiction, we are in real life. Recent real life. And the bumbling fools that couldn’t pull off a bombing are now men that invaded one of America’s cities and caused the death of a real woman. We are not done with this problem. And clearly, we won’t be for generations.
