Black History Month and Malcolm X
We are 13 days into the Black History Month. For some, it may not mean much, or anything at all. But in light of ongoing discrimination issues, there surely are lessons in past we need to learn, in order to understand, fix and be able to build a safer future. That’s why I decided to watch something on that topic. When I hear about the“Struggle for Freedom” the first thing that comes to my mind is the following quote from from Great Debaters.
We do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.
But this time I decided to watch something new and picked movie Malcolm X (1992). Malcolm X was one of the most influential personalities that made the fight of African Americans for freedom possible and was assassinated after numerous threatenings, just before he was preparing to address the audience. But so much about the history, let me delve into the movie.
First of all, a little bit of research and it seems like movie has been well accepted by most (7.7 out of 10 in IMDB). On the other hand, it is a sufficiently long one (3h 22min) and I’m not much fan of anything that goes beyond two and half hours, but this one will be an exception. Denzel Washington is playing the main character and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in this movie (but he didn’t get it), so it must be worth the investment.
Opening scenes of the movie were more appropriate for a jazz musical. Most probably by all that director wanted to show how Afro-Americans accepted limitations of life for people of colour and were just trying to live as if everything’s OK. At least that’s what you get to feel during first 20–30 mins.
After that you start watching short scenes from childhood of Malcolm. His quotes are loaded with feeling and help you better understand what it meant to be an Afro-American back then:
“When I was a kid, I was so poor, I used to think “Not for sale” was a brand name.”
“I was called nigga so much that I thought it was my name.”.
Then, he is sent to a prison and there he learns about Islam. Some of the teachings are complete joke and have nothing to do with any of the religions. The ending quote of this part of the movie is:
“The most dangerous creation in the world in any society is a man which has nothing to loose.”
The real valuable part of the movie should start after that point where you get to see what it was like to be part of the “Struggle for Freedom”, but I didn’t find post-prison portion of the movie to be very successful. It just briefly tries to lay out historical knowledge, but can’t get you to feel yourself as part of the events. Usage of old footage gives a nice feel, but is mostly insufficient.
All in all, it was a nice movie to watch and is OK for anyone not too much aware about Malcolm X. That being said, I surely think interviews of Malcolm X available in the internet are much more valuable. One way or another, if you decide to give it a try, have a very nice time!
