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I think most people don't like it but I have a real soft spot for Bamboozled. It's as unsubtle as anything Lee's ever done but there's something about it, especially in the last third or so, that really gets to me.
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Aug 10, 2018 03:41
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Just got out of this and I think this is Spike's best work in years and maybe ever. I've long held the belief that white supremacy dies with ridicule and parody, and he managed to expertly walk the line between portraying the Klan as cowardly and incompetent while showing how much of a threat systemic racism was and still is. I could probably say more when I can digest it more but this is a remarkable piece of work that I think has a real shot at doing well at the box office.
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Aug 11, 2018 03:10
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I just assumed it is a whole lot thornier, legally, using that kind of footage in a major motion picture than on the news. I'm not a lawyer or anything close to it though so I'm not sure if that's really the case. One possibility is that Lee didn't want to glorify individuals in the movement, because it's really easy for the cult of personality to rally around figures like that and make them seem more powerful than they really are. I didn't think that the movie placed all the blame/responsibility on Trump though. He's saying that this kind of racism goes all the way to the top of our power structures (and are a whole lot more out in the open now) but the whole point of the movie is that the very same tactics, like trading hoods and "grand wizards" for suits and "national directors" to make the organization seem more reasonable (see also: swapping out "nazis" for "alt-right"), that have been allowed to flourish since the time of the film (and before) are still happening today in a very real sense, and Trump is a symptom - a very serious symptom - of a far larger problem of whiteness and white supremacy. Lee gets an easy laugh in BK with the hilariously naive line about how America would never elect a president who openly supported white supremacy or the Klan. E: I also don't think it's fair to criticize Lee's movies as 'heavy-handed' at this stage of his career. He's an unsubtle filmmaker and you'll have to look elsewhere for someone who conceals his message in multiple layers. It's like complaining about Michael Bay using too many explosions, it's just who he is as a filmmaker, for better or worse. flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 14:44
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Timeless Appeal posted:Bambloozled was my first Lee film and really blew me away, but I was thirteen. A lot the film is a meditation on if blackface ever really went away and representation in general. But rewatching some of it recently, it also speaks to the fragility of progress. It makes me wish Damon Wayans were a stronger actor to carry it off. It's a really strong script but it's hard to look past him doing that terrible accent. Of all of Lee's films, Bamboozled is the one that I think could benefit most from a remake. I wonder if a guy like Hannibal Buress could pull that off. Still, it really got me thinking about representation in media long before I could ever articulate my own thoughts on it, and it's still an issue I care about. Bamboozled is a cool movie and I'm gonna try to track it down to watch tonight. It's also got Lee's best poster, but for about a hundred reasons I'll never buy and display it. 
flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 01:09
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