美国国家公共电台 NPR Spike Lee Checks Under The Hood In The Blistering 'BlacKkKlansman'

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Spike 1 Lee's new movie "BlacKkKlansman" is, believe it or not, based on a true story. It's about an African-American police officer who in the 1970s went undercover to infiltrate 2 the Ku Klux Klan by joining it. Critic Bob Mondello says the film is both funny and pointed 3.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE 4: Colorado Springs is about to hire a new police officer. His name - Ron Stallworth.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

ISIAH WHITLOCK JR.: (As Mr. Turrentine) There's never been a black cop in this city. We think you might be the man to open things up around here.

MONDELLO: Open things up he does. Looking through a newspaper at his desk, he sees a Ku Klux Klan recruitment ad. There's a phone number, so he calls it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) This is Ron Stallworth calling. Who am I speaking with?

TOPHER GRACE: (As David Duke) This is David Duke.

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) Grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan - that David Duke?

GRACE: (As David Duke) Last time I checked. What can I do you for?

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) Well, since you asked, I hate blacks. I hate Jews, Mexicans and Irish.

MONDELLO: Every head in the precinct has now turned to watch Ron.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) But my mouth to God's ears, I really hate those black rats and anyone else really that doesn't have pure white Aryan blood running through their veins 5.

GRACE: (As David Duke) I'm happy to be talking to a true white American.

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) God bless white America.

MONDELLO: As the camera lingers on the faces of the white policemen, director Spike Lee gets the laugh he's looking for - not the first and certainly not the last since Stallworth, played by John David Washington, is quickly invited to a meeting of the Klan's local chapter, which presents an obvious problem.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) We need a white officer to play me when they meet face to face.

ROBERT JOHN BURKE: (As Chief Bridges) Can you do that?

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) With the right white man you can do anything.

MONDELLO: The right white man turns out to be Flip 6 Zimmerman, played by Adam Driver, who attends the meeting...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

JASPER PAAKKONEN: (As Felix Kendrickson) Are you for the white race, friend?

ADAM DRIVER: (As Flip Zimmerman) Oh, hell, yeah.

MONDELLO: ...And tries to get the lay of the land...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

DRIVER: (As Flip Zimmerman) What kind of stuff do you guys do?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Cross burnings, marches.

MONDELLO: ...Attracting attention in the process.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

PAAKKONEN: (As Felix Kendrickson) You ask too many questions. Are you undercover or something?

MONDELLO: This is not a comic question obviously. There's serious tension in "BlacKkKlansman's" situation, and the film embraces the shifts in mood with shifts in filmmaking style, Lee actually couching his arguments in a kind of shorthand history of Hollywood's treatment of race. He includes scenes from "Gone With The Wind" and "Birth Of A Nation," has characters discuss '70s blaxploitation films and gives his hero a bit of Shaft's swagger. And in grander scenes, he shift gears entirely 8, sometimes to deliver cathartic 9 broadsides...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

COREY HAWKINS: (As Stokely Carmichael) We must unite and organize to fight racism 10.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) All power.

MONDELLO: ...Other times to evoke 11 a gentler sort of power, as when in this very speech civil rights activist 12 Stokely Carmichael talks of internalizing white standards of beauty and the screen fills with Lee's quietly devastating 13 response - close-ups of the young black faces looking up at Carmichael, halos of soft light caressing 14 cheekbones. Identity is central to "BlacKkKlansman," and not just black identity. Flip Zimmerman, Ron's partner in the police ruse 15, initially 16 thinks his identity isn't a factor.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

DRIVER: (As Flip Zimmerman) For you it's a crusade. For me it's a job.

MONDELLO: But being Jewish, he has a reckoning of sorts.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACKKKLANSMAN")

PAAKKONEN: (As Felix Kendrickson) You're taking this Jew lie detector 17 test.

WASHINGTON: (As Ron Stallworth) They hate you. Doesn't that piss you off? Why are you acting 7 like you ain't got skin in the game?

MONDELLO: Lee's point of course is that we've all got skin in this game. He may depict 18 '70s Klan members as bozos with hood 19 fetishes - hateful, yes, but amusingly incompetent 20. He does that, though, to soften 21 us up for some harrowing juxtapositions 22, chief among them Stallworth's Klan induction 23 intercut with an excruciating recounting of a Klan lynching. Lee uses that look back to setup a head-spinning flash forward to the Trump 24 era. There's a reason "BlacKkKlansman" is opening this weekend, one year nearly to the day after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. If hate groups were insidious 25 four decades ago, argues Lee in his most ferociously 27 entertaining and just plain ferocious 26 film in years, how much more dangerous are they today? I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALL OF CONFUSION")

THE TEMPTATIONS: (Singing) Segregation 28, determination, demonstration 29, integration 30, aggravation 31, humiliation 32, obligation to my nation. Ball of confusion.