DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA

 

     This is a (truly) feel-good musical.  It’s David Byrne’s way of playing a small part in bringing together a country fractured by politics, the pandemic, and social unrest.  The production is beautifully done, blending together meaningful lyrics, interesting music with ear-catching sound effects, choreography by Annie-B Parson that resembles a kaleidoscope, sophisticated production design by Alex Timbers and a rhapsodic spirit.  It’s so creative throughout, the time flashes by as you try to soak in all the elements.  

     All this is with the backdrop of muted colors—mostly shades of gray—and everyone barefoot.  Aptly, it shows children’s drawings first (going back to our roots), then David Byrne holds up one of those brain models you’ve probably only seen in college classes.  He points out the part that survives even when it is disconnected from the other parts, and highlights those parts that provide clarity or confusion, parts that process sound, and those related to hallucinations.  He observes that babies’ brains have millions of connections, but as we grow, only those that are meaningful to our experience remain, that place where the world makes sense. He will come back to referencing the ethos of America and our ways of changing and making sense of life as the show goes on.

     In his songs, David Byrne attends to the universal experiences of loneliness, awkwardness, feelings of not belonging, love for people, aspirations, senselessness, displacement, violence, and much more.  He has songs about the experience of soaring along and then suddenly wondering, “How did I get here?”  And afterwards, realizations that “it’s the same as it ever was.”  So…what are we to do? His answer has to do with valuing other people, dancing, being sensitive to what is around us, and being alert to possible dangers.  

     There is a topical, very moving number toward the end—Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmabout”, in which the singers repeat the names of blacks Emmet Till (1955), Eric Garner (2014) and others more recently killed at the hands of the police. But many oldie favorites of Byrne’s songs are sprinkled throughout.

     American Utopia is a beautiful collaboration between Spike Lee and David Byrne in converting Byrne’s Broadway stage show (which had to stop performing live when the pandemic hit) into a movie whose songs—some old, some new—continue to resound in your brain long after the ending.  The same happens with the many different moods brought up by the production.

 

A musical rare in its encompassing so many elements of human existence, particularly in these troubling times, ultimately leading to a sense of healing and peace.

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

BLACKKKLANSMAN

John David Washington     Adam Driver     Laura Harrier     Ryan Eggold     Topher Grace

Ryan Eggold     Jasper Paakkonen     Paul Walter Hauser     Harry Belafonte     Alec Baldwin

     Spike Lee has given us a chilling, eloquent picture about race relations in America, based on an autobiographical account by Ron Stallworth, a former police officer in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who led an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970’s.  It plays like a suspense-filled thriller, with the viewer sweating through many scenes where it is uncertain whether cover will be blown and whether characters will be killed.

     Ron Stallworth (adeptly played by Washington) is the first black police officer in Colorado Springs; to be a policeman was always his dream—particularly if he could be an undercover agent.  His first assignment is as a records clerk, which he loathes; then the opportunity comes to cover a speech by a controversial figure at a local campus, Stokely Carmichael, who has changed his name to Kwami Ture, a name that sticks in the throats of the law enforcement community.  Ron does such a good job, he is assigned to the intelligence service when he comes up with a plan to go undercover in the just-forming Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs.  

     After answering an ad for recruiting members for the local KKK by telephone, he convinces his police captain to send in a white police officer, Flip Zimmerman (Driver), to pose as “Ron Stallworth” and learn what the Klan is up to in the area. Stallworth actually calls David Duke (Grace), “Grand Wizard” of the Klan, to expedite his membership card. Duke is so impressed with Stallworth, he goes to Colorado to induct him personally into the Klan.

     In addition to the tension surrounding the undercover operation and maintaining anonymity, there is also conflict in the romantic relationship Ron has rather naively formed with one of the black protestors, Patrice (Harrier), who looks exactly like Angela Davis, and who is constantly trying to find out who he really is. There is also the Klansman Felix (spookily played by Paakonen) who is suspicious of Flip, (he thinks he has spotted him as a Jew) and performs tests of his identity and commitment. We’re also on edge, waiting to see if any of the threats picked up by the police department and the FBI(?) will come to fruition.

     BlacKkKlansman will most likely come to be considered as Spike Lee’s best film so far.  It won the Gran Prix at Cannes this year, and Lee received a standing ovation at its premier.       This seems well deserved in consideration of the overall production including screenplay, direction, actors, music, and cinematography—and its topical relevance.  One of the jewels is the juxtaposition of a Klan meeting showing a disgusting racist film and a black protest meeting, in which an account delivered by Harry Belefonte tells about the horrific mistreatment of a black child.

     As stunning as the film is, it is long; and there are a few scenes that could have been shortened, and one at the end that could have been cut altogether; it’s a telephone call informing a major character about the law enforcement subterfuge.  Perhaps this actually occurred (I have not read Stallworth’s book), but it looks more like the filmmakers simply wanted to vent their spleen.

BlacKkKlansman is a meritorious addition to the films that are making statements about us that we should take seriously.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

CHI-RAQ

Nick Cannon   Teyonah Parris   Wesley Snipes   Angela Bassett   Samuel L. Jackson   John Cusack   Jennifer Hudson

            Spike Lee’s latest production is a modern operetta with rap music.  (I was grateful for the subtitles in the opening number, “Pray 4 my City” by Nick Cannon.)  Chi-Raq is a rapper’s term signifying that with its high murder rate, Chicago is more of a death zone than Iraq.  With the story’s basis in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, the black and brown women in Chicago deny their men sex until they give up their guns:  “No peace; no pussy.”  The movement swells, and after the involvement of city and national officials, word spreads, and soon the chant is heard in native tongues around the world.  Women state emphatically that “Saving lives is our job” and advocate peace for all.  The film gets even more idealistic by the end when suddenly Fortune 500 companies are creating jobs for black men (at higher than the minimum wage), poor people are getting loans from banks, and so on.

        I got a big kick out of Chi-Raq with its rap-opera quality, the basis of it being drawn from an ancient Greek play, and the suggestion that a movement for peace could spread around the world.  I particularly like the funeral service for a child killed by a stray bullet in which Father Corridan (Cusack) indicts politicians for bowing to the National Rifle Association’s pressure on them to defeat reasonable legislation on the sale of guns.  Corridan (based on a real person, Father Mike Pfleger, in Chicago) explains very well how the violence in the black community has developed (e.g., economic and social deprivation, disenfranchisement, and increased incarceration of black males for minor violations).  

         The cast is strong, beginning with Samuel L. Jackson’s narration, John Cusack as the white priest, Jennifer Hudson as Irene, one of the aggrieved mothers, and Angela Bassett as an older sister of Lysistrata with wise council.  Carrying the drama throughout are the main players, Nick Cannon and Wesley Snipes as leaders of rival gangs and Teyonah Parris (Lysistrata) as Chi-Raq’s (Cannon) girlfriend and leader of the movement calling for peace. 

      Chi-Raq is a serious film that points the finger at guns and gangs, but as well at government and society for disregarding the plight of the poor in our cities.  It places blight on our conscience, and Lee emphasizes the immediacy of these problems (constituting an emergency) that should receive as much attention as we pay to the disenfranchised in other countries.

Spike Lee indicts society’s role in Chicago’s designation as the murder capital of the U.S.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland