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I recently read that this is one of W. Kamau Bell’s favorite movies (his favorite movie by Spike Lee, one of his favorite directors), so I thought I’d dig into the memory banks to see if I could provide my own thoughts.
I just looked and I was surprised by how long this movie is (3+ hours) by the standards of film; I watch movies in pieces like they were books, so I guess a movie never seems ‘long’ to me. Also, it did seem kinda short to me compared to the 600+ page book it’s based on that I read. (His memoir.) It’s trite and half true at best to say that movies aren’t as good as books—it’s based on a bias against visual learning which is pretty colonial and in an odd sort of way, superficial. Especially for a book-to-movie like this, it is nice to SEE sympathetic Blackness, you know. But movies are, since they’re conventionally seen in one long marathon viewing, rather short, really. Really what they should do is create a miniseries or something—6+ hours, with at least three episodes, one for each section of his life: early life when he was a child/young adult/hustler, then the Nation of Islam, then his universalist period and assassination…. I don’t know; I guess the market for movies is bigger. Maybe if enough time passes there might be demand for something like I’ve described, if we’re lucky.
But it’s a good movie, I guess. Maybe we’re at least marginally lucky that there’s cinema now about Blacks and diverse people if you look for it, at least.
So yeah….
I mean, in white folk-memory people don’t understand Malcolm X, but ‘60s civil rights without Malcolm X is like the Beatles without John Lennon, you know; it just doesn’t make any sense. As much as I love Paul, you know. (smiles) Wrong place to bring that up, I know. LOL.
