BlacKkKlansman

BlacKkKlansman
Focus Features
August 10, 2018
Historical Drama, Historical Comedy, Romance
DVD
B+

Spike Lee directed and co-wrote this film based on the memoir by Ron Stallworth, although some details were changed from the book, including the setting of '79 to '72.  I saw the movie in the theater and it still packs a wallop on the home screen, but I am well aware it is at times heavy-handed propaganda.  That's not to say it doesn't make its points and it's not thought-provoking or entertaining, but it is manipulative, albeit skillfully. 

Deciding on genre tags was tough, because it is historical-- and about history itself, linking 1972 to 1916 and 2017-- but it is definitely a drama, and, yes, a romance, and for one glorious scene, as a group of young Afro-Americans sing and dance in a club to "Too Late to Turn Back Now," a musical.  Lee manages the tonal shifts, sometimes even simultaneously, so that we can, for instance, be both amused and horrified by the cruel stupidity of the Klan.  When Ron's coworkers gather around the phone to hear him punk the white supremacists, we are with them, trying not to giggle but also amazed at Ron's daring.

Washington, the then 33-year-old son of Denzel, plays Ron with a certain naivete and youth, while Adam Driver (just a few months older) is the relatively more experienced cop who finds himself letting "the rookie" lead this crazy case.  The movie plays with philosophy and identity, especially for "the white Ron Stallworth" (a non-observant Jew here, a still unknown man in real life), acknowledging the heavier questions but always aware of the absurdity.  We get moments of triumph and glee, but the ending is ambiguous, and deliberately shot like one of the blacksploitation movies that Ron and his black-radical girlfriend Patrice debate.  The movie is partly about their courtship, but there is no Happily Ever After for them or Colorado Springs.

The movie draws obvious parallels to then and now, and to David Duke (played wonderfully by Grace, his '70s boy next door past as Eric Forman putting a spin on Duke's seeming normality) and to Donald Trump.  Specific lines, like about "America First" and "Making America Great Again" are deliberate, as is I believe the casting of Trump-impersonator Baldwin in the opening cameo as a '50s bigot.  It may sound funny to say this about a movie that premiered at Cannes only a year and a half ago, but this film is definitely a relic of the Trump era, specifically the first half of Trump's first (?) term.  Watching the Charlottesville footage in the "now" section, including Trump's "both sides" comment, felt rawer the summer after than it does in the safety of my own home, but that's not to say that it is not still a painful epilogue.  And running Prince's then unreleased version of "Mary, Don't You Weep" over the closing credits is just as poignant now.

Note that Michael Buscemi looks distractingly like his brother Steve.