Malcolm X

1
Malcolm X

• November 2, 2004

2
Approaches to the Text

• Content vs. Form what vs. how
• There is no absolute division between formal
  analysis and the question of what an author is
  really trying to say (content).
• Content in this case refers to the life (facts,
  myths, beliefs, etc) of Malcolm X.
• Spike Lee emphasizes these particulars in certain
  ways, through formal choices.
• Words like form are tricky because they mean
  different things in different contexts

3
Narrowing down form

• Form can, provisionally (meaning for the purposes
  of this discussion) be broken down into
• Genre
• Structure
• style

4
The Genre of Malcolm X

• Autobiography or biopic
• The film purports to accurately report the life
• The artist will shape the story to some degree
• whole cloth invention not allowed
• The artist is bound by facts but is free to
  play with structure and style

5
Structure vs Style

• What is structure?
• In a building
• In a painting
• Basic geometrical shapes
• Dominant patterns
• In a work of literature
• Broken into smaller units? (chapters, scenes)
• Relationships between those units?
• Chronological?

6
Structure in Malcolm X

• A chronological narrative
• But with flashbacks and foreshadowing
• A life in three acts
• Con-man, Nation spokesman, free man
• A sharp division between past and present
• Stylization emphasizes pastness, nostalgia
• I am Malcolm Xemphasis on resultant shift

7
Autobiographical Structure

• The movie begins with Malcolm as a stylish train
  porter (who becomes a thief).
• Malcolm describes his own childhood in
  retrospective voice-overs and flash-back scenes
  oppression by whites including murder of father
  and dissolution of family and racist
  conditioning.
• Key mentors West Indian Archie, Elijah Muhammad
  they mark the shifts between the three life
  acts.
• Patterns of (Oedipal?) rebellion give continuity
  to the various Malcolms of this movie.

8
Autobiography, automythography

• Spike Lee reports Malcolm Xs reportsso Lee not
  responsible if Malcolm distorts.
• Father died on train tracks, head smashed in with
  hammer. Racist whites wont pay insurance.
• If head run over by train, how can we tell it was
  smashed with a hammer?
• Lee quietly acknowledges some doubts about
  Malcolms accounts

9
Style

• Style, stylus, style is the man
• Style vs content
• Font, font, font, font, font
• Style is HOW the matter is said, as opposed to
  WHAT gets said. It is not the essential content
  of the message, but it is directly related to the
  essential content
• To describe the style is to characterize the
  artistic decisions that have been made upbeat,
  angry, sullen, ironic, etc etc.

10
Two levels of style beware!

• There is style IN the film, and then there is the
  style OF the film. These may be related, but
  dont conflate them.
• Dancehall scene stylish clothes, jitterbug
  dancing Spike Lee is reminding us that certain
  styles and attitudes and beliefs were once in
  fashion. This is style IN the film.
• Then there is Spike Lees quasi cartoonish
  approach to this sceneit is basically a musical
  number idyllic might describe it.
  Inconsequential.

11
Stylistic SHIFTS

• Malcolm enters Nation of Islam
• no more sepia haze or unreal stylization
• effect this is real, not a dream or a joke.
• Use of Al Sharpton an actual African-American
  leader (who has been despised by white media).
• Several choices emphasize the idea that Malcolm
  is, at least in a relative way, waking up

12
Film Clip

• From train porter through Malcolm meets Archie

13
Style in this clip

• What styles do you see IN the clip?
• What are some of the ways in which we can
  characterize the style (or styles) of this clip?
  HOW does Lee tell this part of the story?

14
IN and OF commingle

• The scene is rambunctious and playful until
  the blond (Sophia) shows up and divides Malcolm
  from the black woman. Denzel Washington performs
  a nervous but excited Malcolm Little, and the
  wild jitterbugging gives way to slow dance, the
  dance of seduction rather than carnivalesque
  play.

15
Color and style

• color is thematized in this film about race
• Thus, two levels again
• Note blue/red contrasts in early scenes childish
  pastels bright blue light coming in windows,
  sepia tones and burnout lights.
• Note sepia lens effects nostalgic approximation
  as opposed to reality
• Many of these effects drop out when Malcolm joins
  the Nation of Islam

16
Is Style merely a distraction?

• color bright blue and red costumes that are a
  bit too loud compare with documentary footage of
  Joe Louis, etc. Malcolm Little is stylized as a
  jitterbug petty criminal, a colorful figure a
  clown or harlequin figure. Why?
• Elijah Muhammad will say that Malcolm had been a
  clown
• Thus, style can be a way of associating various
  images and representations together a whole way
  of life is presented in a somewhat satirical
  manner. To jitterbug is to be obtuse/complacent
  about racism (the stylistic choices suggest)

17
Style and Meaning when Malcolm meets Archie

• Dont you ever, in your life, say anything
  against my mother.
• --violence is cute. Its good to love your
  mother.
• Malcolm is stylish, but he is essentially tough.

18
West Indian Archie

• Macho Man lives by his rep.
• Dont ever write anything down.
• Malcolm willl write Autobiography
• Did you con me?
• Private language, beat slang Daddy-o
• playing the numbers, gambling, cocaine, white
  chicks the sexy underworld
• Finger shooting gameprophetic
• several such scenes foreshadow assassination
• Lee reminds us, when showing Malcolm at his
  worst, that he will be a martyr to truth.

19
Style and subtlety

• Style, thus, is the language of subtlety
• Far from being the antithesis of content, style
  is often the chief means for a writer or
  filmmaker to editorialize, to make personal
  statements even when the facts might demand an
  alternative view

20
In Sum avoid either/or approach

• Genre, form (structure and style), and content
  are abstract terms that designate aspects of a
  literary text.
• An analysis will often foreground one aspect so
  as to unify terms of comparison (eg, camera
  angles in both Lee films).
• But focusing on style or genre etc does NOT mean
  we have to talk about one element in exclusion
  from all others. Subordinating certain elements
  does not mean excluding them.

21
PAPERS

• General quality down. More revision needed.
• Conceptual
• Organizational
• Editorial
• Note shift in deadline for 3rd paper. See me
  with any questions.