Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman’ Threads a Sharp Needle Through American Racial History

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MOVIE: BlacKkKlansman
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
CAST: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier
AVAILABLE ON: Prime Video and iTunes

When Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing hit theaters in 1989, theater chains made a big deal about being worried that black audiences would be so incensed by the end of the film — where, spoiler (though shame on you if you’ve never seen Do the Right Thing), the cops kill Radio Raheem and Mookie throws a garbage can through the white-owned pizzeria window, sparking a riot — that they themselves would riot. The assumption itself was pretty racist at the time, and it was indicative of the way that the mainstream culture treated that film. When the film was subsequently shut out of all the major Oscar races (it got nominated for Original Screenplay and for Danny Aiello’s supporting performance), Lee’s place in the Hollywood ecosystem as an outside agitator was set.

Now, almost thirty years after that film, Lee is back in the Oscar race — possibly as an outsider again — with BlacKkKlansman. The film is a true story — sorry, it’s “based on some for real, for real shit,” as per its marketing materials — about a man named Ron Stallworth, who was hired as the first black police officer in Colorado Springs. He’s initially used by the department to infiltrate black student groups at their various rallies and meetings, the better for the Feds to combat the likes of the Black Panthers. But before long, the ambitious Stallworth presses his superiors to let him investigate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, something he’s able to do quite easily over the phone thanks to some nimble code-switching and affecting a “white” voice. But for the in-person meetings, they need a white face, so enter detective Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), who’s grappling with how much stake he has in this case, given his Judaism.

The most enjoyable parts of BlacKkKlansman are when Stallworth and Zimmerman put their heads together to try and work the case. The whole thing feels so unbelievable, even if we know it’s based on a true story, and there is a playful incredulousness to Lee’s filmmaking in these scenes that feels very right. Flip (posing as “Ron Stallworth”) is under suspicion by one particularly vehement Klansman, Felix (Jasper Pääkkönen), from minute one, and it’s frankly insane that the operation keeps moving forward under the probable threat of Flip being found out. There’s also a subplot involving Felix’s brow-beaten but true-believer wife Connie (Ashlie Atkinson) that perhaps better than anything illustrates the banality of this country’s deeply embedded racism. The resolution to that storyline feels ragged and merciless in a way the rest of the movie, frankly, doesn’t.

The highs and lows present in BlacKkKlansman both feel endemic to Lee’s strengths and weaknesses as both filmmaker and charismatic public figure. The most emotionally intense moments in the film feel almost removed from the story itself, as actor and civil rights luminary Harry Belafonte shows up to narrate the story of Jesse Washington, a black teen lynched in Texas in 1916. The particulars of the story … you can’t call them “shocking.” Not for anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the Jim Crow South. But the accounts of Washington being hung, burned, castrated, of the children in the town coming out on their lunch breaks from school to take photos, of Washington’s corpse being dragged through town, dismembered, and sold as souvenirs. It’s so barbaric, so shattering to hear about in plain, detailed terms. It reminds you of how Lee was able to relate another piece of black American history in 4 Little Girls. And by the film’s end, Lee makes triple sure that his audience won’t walk away without directly connecting the events of Jesse Washington’s lynching to the present day, up through Charlottesville 2017.

The film’s weaknesses sit with the Stallworth character, in his relationship with a black student activist (Laura Harrier), and in the ways in which the police department Stallworth works for rallies at the end to bust a racist cop on his behalf. Which feels, if not false, than at the very least incongruous with all these other stories about institutional racism that Lee is making sure we don’t forget about. It often becomes tough to tell whether Lee is at odds with himself over how good we’re supposed to feel about this black cop working within the system or if he’s at odds with the audience. (This was the subject of the criticism that Sorry to Bother You director Boots Riley posted to his Twitter over the summer.)

In the end, BlacKkKlansman is one of the most important movies of the year because it’s a clear shout from one of cinema’s foremost black filmmakers at a time when there is much to shout about. It’s one of the most compelling movies of the year because of its eyebrow-raising true-life story, one performed so well by the likes of Washington, Driver, and, in a masterpiece of tone control, Topher Grace, playing David Duke as an unctuous mix of true-believer racism and front-facing friendliness. And it’s one of the most challenging movies of the year when it comes to figuring out how you ultimately feel about Spike Lee’s effectiveness in talking about race in 2018. See this movie, then read A LOT about it.

Where to stream BlacKkKlansman