Sunday, BBC2, 10:00pm
Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992) is as much a cinematic tour de force as it is a deep dive into one of the most pivotal figures in American history. The film, a meticulous adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, manages to blend historical fidelity with Lee's unique, often confrontational, cinematic style. Denzel Washington’s towering performance dominates the screen, capturing Malcolm’s evolution from street hustler to civil rights icon with an authenticity that rivals history itself. But beneath this powerful visual narrative is Terence Blanchard's equally resonant score, an element that deserves as much credit as any of the film’s historic set pieces.
Blanchard, a frequent Lee collaborator, crafts a score that interweaves jazz, blues, and gospel, genres deeply connected to African-American culture and the struggle for civil rights. The trumpet, Blanchard’s own instrument, often serves as Malcolm’s voice in the score—reflective, fierce, and, at times, mournful. The music swells and falls with Malcolm’s fortunes, capturing his internal conflict and the external pressures he faced. Particularly striking is the film’s use of silence, or sparse instrumentation, to punctuate moments of reflection or tension, echoing the pauses in Malcolm’s speeches, where meaning builds in the spaces between words.
Historically, Malcolm X treads carefully, offering a relatively faithful portrayal of the man’s life. However, Lee does play with time and focus, presenting Malcolm’s pilgrimage to Mecca as a spiritual turning point that oversimplifies some of the complexities of his later life. Nevertheless, the combination of Washington’s performance, Lee’s direction, and Blanchard’s score creates a rich, multi-layered film that—while not flawless in its historical detail—offers an emotionally truthful representation of Malcolm’s enduring legacy. In this film, the music not only underscores the emotional highs and lows but amplifies the historic reverberations of a man whose voice still echoes across generations.
- Tom Hanson