"Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power."
- Malcolm X
February 21 . . .
While standing to deliver a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem this day in 1965, African-American activist and leader Malcolm X was assasinated by several Black Muslim extremists who were angered by Malcom's recent decision to defect from the Nation of Islam. Or so the official story goes. Many, to this day, have unanswered questions surrounding the murder.
As both a man and an icon, Malcolm X remains a cultural lightning rod and an enigma of contradictions - angry militant, enlightened prophet, uptown pimp, religious radical, petty criminal, galvanizing orator and dedicated family man.
Spike Lee was the ideal director to tell his story in the impressive bio-pic 'Malcolm X' (1992). Denzel Washington delivers an incendiary performance as the charismatic Malcolm - ever evolving, compassionate, angry, self-righteous, militant. From his zoot-suited pimping days in Harlem in the 1940s to his imprisonment, where he first became converted to the Islamic faith, to his rise as a disciple of Elijah Muhammad, the Supreme Leader of the Nation of Islam, to his life-changing pilgramage to Mecca, Lee's film intelligently examines the life of one of the 20th Century's most charismatic and volatile leaders. Lee admirably restrains himself from his usually showy style, flawlessly integrating the various phases of Malcolm's often contradictory life into a cohesive whole. A magnificent accomplishment all around.
Click here to see the original trailer . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbKs766Tr88
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