The Emory Cinematheque Presents: BlacKkKlansman

The Emory Cinematheque Presents: BlackKklansman December 9, 7:30 p.m. in White Hall 208 2018 | 135 min. | DCP Directed by Spike Lee Introduced by Dr. Ellen C. Scott (University of California, Los Angeles)

BlacKkKlansman is a Spike Lee joint loosely based on Ron Stallworth’s memoir, Black Klansman, published in 2014. The story details the work life of Stallworth within the Colorado Springs Police Department in the 1970s. While there, as the department’s first Black detective, Stallworth attempts to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan.

The debates around the film and Lee’s perceived return to an earlier verve make for a compelling viewing experience. Longtime Village Voice cultural critic and author Greg Tate believes that “On a meta-level, Spike and BlacKkKlansman’s real-life heroic subject share something in common, they’re both spooks who not only spat inside the door but blew off its hinges in the process.”

However, scholar and writer Joshua Sperling notes that another filmmaker, Boots Riley, felt some type of way about the film. Apparently in a series of tweets, Riley accused Lee of producing “a politically compromised film at a time when the Black Liberation movement was focusing more and more on the systemic injustice of a militarized police force…the implication was that Lee’s renewed success was being conferred by the wrong people, achieved using the wrong means.”

BlacKkKlansman stars John David Washington, Adam Driver, and Laura Harrier. The film received six Academy Award nominations and was Spike Lee’s first nomination in the Best Director category. Lee wins his first competitive Oscar as co-writer of the film in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

UCLA film scholar and special advisor on the L.A. Rebellion Dr. Ellen C. Scott will introduce the film and lead the Q & A.