USA TODAY International Edition
Lee capitalizes on past and present
‘BlacKkKlansman’ uses ‘GWTW,’ Charlottesville
“BlacKkKlansman” has rightly been praised for connecting its 1970s story about a black police officer’s infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan with clips from last year’s violent Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia. The closing news footage devastatingly conveys how far we haven’t come.
But Spike Lee’s acclaimed new film (in theaters now), which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival, also uses its lens to present a historical look at white supremacy, Confederate longing and black resistance.
Movies are entertainment, but they are also a powerful persuasive force that can influence popular opinion through a potent mix of sights, sounds and emotions. It helps to see scripted movies as jumping-off points for further study, not a final source in themselves.
Over time, movies become historical assets, too, revealing much about the social and cultural opinions of the time when they were made.
“BlacKkKlansman” opens with a famous crane shot from the classic “Gone With the Wind.” Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) roams through a train yard full of Civil War injured and dead as a tattered Confederate flag flaps in the breeze, the 1939 film’s bow to a romanticized view of the “Lost Cause.”
Later in the movie, Lee weaves in D.W. Griffith’s pioneering but overtly racist 1915 silent film, “The Birth of A Nation,” adapted from a 1905 novel titled “The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.”
In “BlacKkKlansman,” Klan leader David Duke (Topher Grace) screens “Birth” for the Colorado Springs chapter
after a clandestine induction ceremony.
Critics and historians credit Griffith with innovative, influential narrative and filming techniques at a time when the storytelling and commercial potential of the movie industry were just beginning to be recognized.
But historians also say the false and reverential history of “Birth,” which depicts Klan members rescuing society from savage black men, contributed to the revival of the Klan, illustrating the influence of the medium. (Nate Parker’s 2016 film ironically adopted the same title to tell the story of a black man, Nat Turner, who led a slave revolt in 1831.)
Although “Birth” and “Gone With the Wind,” which won eight Oscars (including best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, the first black winner in the acting categories) and became the most popular film of its time, don’t accurately reflect Civil War and Reconstruction history, they tell us much about popular attitudes in the decades when they were released.
The films, both selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry,
present troubling views of race, the war and its aftermath, conveying false stereotypes of black Americans while concocting a romanticized past.
“Birth” is more overt, although criticism of “GWTW” has increased over the years for its sanitized version of slave life and glorification of the Confederate cause. Controversy flared last year when a Memphis theater decided to end a 34-year tradition of screening “GWTW” because of its racial insensitivity, provoking strong backlash from the film’s fans and some free-expression supporters. But in their time, “GWTW” obliterated box-office records, and “Birth” was the first film screened at the White House, then occupied by President Woodrow Wilson, who has come under increasing criticism for his practices and policies concerning race.
None of this is news to Lee, who draws a parallel to the present by using footage of President Donald Trump downplaying the racism and violence of Unite the Right marchers in Charlottesville by referring to “very fine people on both sides.”
Abhorrent racial characterizations would lead many to shun these films. Lee chooses instead to put them front and center in “BlacKkKlansman” to convey ugly elements that illustrate part of America’s past and raise questions about the present.
A film student and aficionado, Lee also examines the “blaxploitation” genre of the 1970s. In “BlacKkKlansman,” black police officer Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) and black college activist Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier) discuss hits of the genre, which includes 1971”s “Shaft,” 1972’s “Super Fly” and 1973’s “Coffy.”
Blaxploitation has its own contradictions. The benefits were vast: The genre films focused on black characters, making them protagonists and heroes, gave lead roles to black actors (Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Pam Grier) and provided welcome opportunities for black directors (Gordon Parks), a development that unfortunately lost traction in subsequent decades.
But the genre also veered into stereotypes – the “Super Fly” lead character is a womanizing drug dealer, for instance – and “BlacKkKlansman” takes that on with Ron and Patrice debating the merits of Roundtree’s Shaft vs. O’Neal’s Priest in “Super Fly.”
Social and cultural views evolve with time, which means our opinions about the messages of older films change, too. But they retain historical value, even if we don’t agree with their messages, as Lee has brilliantly shown in “BlacKkKlansman.”
Viewers have the choice to avoid the ugly message of “Birth” and other old movies; they don’t stand like statues in the town square. But they must remain available for viewing and study as they are part of our history. As Lee vividly illustrates, these visual time capsules can help us understand who we were, who we are and who we might be.