Winner of this year’s Academy award for best adapted screenplay, Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman, portrays a true story that follows an American hero as he strives for equality and justice. After directing, writing and producing many comical classics like Do the right thing and Bamboozled, Lee put his creative juices to work when telling the story of Ron Stallworth in order to create a dramatic crime film filled with comedic traits and an abundance of film techniques that shocked the industry and won an Oscar.
The plot:
Ron Stallworth, an African-American, becomes the first detective of his heritage in the Colorado Springs police department. Not only does this occur at a time of conflict between both black and white communities, but Stallworth takes yet another risk by infiltrating into the Klu Klux Klan, in aim of exposing and eliminating it. The Klu Klux Klan is an extreme hate group who believe they were put on this earth in order to cleanse it of the black empowerment movement. Ron Stallworth recruits a fellow white detective to take on his physical identity, in order to trick the KKK’s leader, David Duke.
The first time I watched BlackKklansman, I was in shock both because of how the film differed to anything I had previously seen and as a result of the unexpected reality of the movie’s events that was confirmed in the film’s denouement. The “balance of tonal shifts” is what Lee manages to control to a tee according to The Guardian, making his audience both “laugh and gasp”. BlackKklansman becomes a rollercoaster of emotions the keeps the audience both baffled and obsessively wanting more. Additionally, when it comes to Spike Lee’s cinematographic style, it does not disappoint. The complex film techniques like the free-floating, dolly shots used towards the end of the film, not only reminds us of who’s film we are watching but also exhibits the professionalism and skill required to make the unnatural, enjoyable.
However, not everyone seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, Boots Riley, director of Sorry to bother you, realised a three page critique on Twitter expressing his point of view on the “extension of [Spike Lee’s] ad campaign” to aid minorities. He claims that the story behind BlackKklansman is not a true story and that many of the events that take place in the film were created to form a heroic portrayal of Ron Stallworth, who in Riley’s opinion is “the villain”.
To conclude, there may be controversial opinions on this empowerment-based film, nevertheless, one cannot deny that it did not hit the industry with force and create the uproar that takes films to the so called big league.
Bibliography:
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). BlacKkKlansman. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlacKkKlansman [Accessed 7 Mar. 2019].
Kermode, M. (2018). BlacKkKlansman review – a blistering return to form for Spike Lee. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/26/blackkklansman-review-spike-lee-blistering-return-to-form [Accessed 7 Mar. 2019].
Nordine, M. (2018). Boots Riley Criticizes Spike Lee’s Portrayal of Cops in ‘BlacKkKlansman,’ Calls the Real Ron Stallworth a ‘Villain’. [online] IndieWire. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/boots-riley-blackkklansman-spike-lee-criticism-1201996032/ [Accessed 7 Mar. 2019].
Riley, B. (2018). Twitter. [online] Twitter.com. Available at: https://twitter.com/BootsRiley/status/1030575674447212544/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1030575674447212544&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiewire.com%2F2018%2F08%2Fboots-riley-blackkklansman-spike-lee-criticism-1201996032%2F [Accessed 7 Mar. 2019].