Abstract
This paper proposes to analyze Spike Lee ’s 1992 film about the life and death of the black leader Malcolm X in the light of the latter’s autobiography , jointly written by Malcolm X and Alex Haley . While it is a known fact that Spike Lee, and Arnold Perl, who wrote the screenplay, took their cue from the autobiography , it is also clear that the scope of the film, its tone, and the narrative choices made account for the very different feelings readers and viewers experience.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Malcolm X , with the assistance of Alex Haley , The Autobiography of Malcolm X (London: Penguin, 2001). All further references are to this edition.
- 2.
In addition to James Baldwin, novelists David Bradley and Calder Willingham as well as playwright David Mamet tried their hand at the script. Famous directors, such as Sydney Lumet, Stuart Rosenberg, and Bob Fosse contemplated making the film but they all finally renounced largely because of the constraints imposed by the family, the Nation of Islam (NOI), etc.
- 3.
This no doubt accounts for the exceptional length of the film, 201 minutes.
- 4.
“Laura never again came to the drugstore as long as I continued to work there. The next time I saw her, she was a wreck of a woman, notorious around black Roxbury, in and out of jail. She had finished high school, but by then she was already going the wrong way. Defying her grandmother, she had started going out late and drinking liquor. This led to dope, and that to selling herself to men. Learning to hate the men who bought her, she also became a Lesbian. One of the shames I have carried for years is that I blame myself for all of this. To have treated her as I did for a white woman made the blow doubly heavy. The only excuse I can offer is that like so many of my black brothers today, I was just deaf, dumb, and blind.”
Works Cited
Abrams, Dennis. Spike Lee Director: Black Americans of Achievement Legacy Edition. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2008.
Bingham, Dennis. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2010.
Breitman, George (ed.). Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. London: Secker & Warburg, 1966.
Cahir Costanzo, Linda. Film to Literature Theory and Practical Approaches. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2006.
Curtis IV, Edward E. Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam 1960–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Custen, George. Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Doherty, Thomas. “Malcolm X: In print, on Screen.” Biography, vol. 23, no. 1, The Biopic (Winter 2000): 29–48.
Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
El-Beshti, Bashir. “The Semiotics of Salvation: Malcolm X and the Autobiographical Self.” Journal of Negro History, vol. 82, no. 4 (Autumn 1997): 359–367.
Malcolm X. Dir. Spike Lee. Prod. Marvin Worth and Spike Lee. Screenplay Arnold Perl and Spike Lee. Warner Brothers, and 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 1993.
Malcolm X, with the assistance of Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. London: Penguin, 2001.
Marable, Manning. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking Press an Imprint of Penguin Group USA, 2011.
Nasson, Bill. “‘A Whiteout’: Malcolm X in South Africa.” The Journal of American History, vol. 80, no. 3 (December 1993): 1199–1201.
Norman, Brian. “Reading a ‘Closet Screenplay’: Hollywood, James Baldwin’s Malcolms and the Threat of Historical Irrelevance.” African American Review, vol. 39, nos. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2005): 103–118.
Painter, Nell Irvine. “Malcolm X Across the Genres.” The American Historical Review, vol. 98, no. 2 (April 1993): 432–439.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dubois, D. (2018). Malcolm X: From the Autobiography to Spike Lee’s Film, Two Complementary Perspectives on the Man and the Militant Black Leader. In: Letort, D., Lebdai, B. (eds) Women Activists and Civil Rights Leaders in Auto/Biographical Literature and Films. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77081-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77081-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77080-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77081-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)