Movie Club Edition Nine: American History X - SPOILERS

faniebraai

faniebraai

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****The discussion starts Monday 4th May 2015****



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**A review is encouraged, and a star review out of 5 is preferred over a /10 score.

0 - Couldn't finish it was so bad
1- Horrible
2 - Very Bad
2.5 -OK <- just to be in the middle
3 - Good/Very Good
4- Excellent
5 - Perfect

Previous Discussion Threads:
1. Vertigo
2. Chinatown
3. Blue Velvet
4. Angel Heart
5. Porco Rosso
6. Fargo
7. The Shining
8. Amelie
 
This was my first viewing of it. What a good movie this is. As always Edward Norton is good, as well as the Terminator kid ;)

The only thing I didn't like about this movie, was how quick it was over. It felt that they were building up to something a little more "Disney" for an ending, but it came to an ending typical of Full Metal Jacket. I would've been very interested to see what happened beyond the end of the movie.

A solid
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Excellent movie which I had avoided previously because of the curb stomp scene (I could still barely watch it this time :sick:). Norton and Furlong where both excellent in their roles as well as Avery Brooks That final scene was all the more gut wrenching as it comes once he has truly tried to turn his back on his past life.

4/5 for me.
 
3/5, didn't care for it, didn't finish it. Seemed very preachy and Edward Norton was totally unconvincing.
 
cerebus said:
3/5, didn't care for it, didn't finish it. Seemed very preachy and Edward Norton was totally unconvincing.
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:wtf:

First time I've heard that.

4/5 for me, too.

Quite a tough topic, but handled well. Always funny to see Ethan Suplee in this role when contrasted with his role in My Name Is Earl.

Supposedly there was an 'original' ending where Derek is seen in a bathroom shaving his head again. Don't think it was ever filmed, though.

I think both could work, actually. That one would show how difficult it is to escape from the kind of life he had. You don't just walk away from it all.

However, his brother dying already shows the horrific consequences that can follow, with a bit of bad fortune thrown in.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
:wtf:

First time I've heard that.
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Well, maybe I just found the character itself unconvincing. Having dealt with plenty of skinhead types during my time in the States, these are not articulate people who sit at a dinner table and spout statistics. American skinheads are true rednecks, and Edward Norton was altogether too smooth and New York to pull it off.
 
And Norton, effective as he is, comes across more as a bright kid with bad ideas than as a racist burning with hate.
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I think the movie is trying to show how easy it is for otherwise bright and good people to be seduced by bad ideas given certain stresses (his father being shot). A bright and good kid who is then capable of the most appalling violence.
 
cerebus said:
Well, maybe I just found the character itself unconvincing. Having dealt with plenty of skinhead types during my time in the States, these are not articulate people who sit at a dinner table and spout statistics. American skinheads are true rednecks, and Edward Norton was altogether too smooth and New York to pull it off.
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Hmm, I'm not sure how fair that is. You can't really use a stereotype, based on your own experience, to invalidate the possibility of a slightly more articulate racist. Watch some of those KKK documentaries. Not all of them are inbred morons.

Also, the character is based on a real person, Frank Meeink.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Hmm, I'm not sure how fair that is. You can't really use a stereotype, based on your own experience, to invalidate the possibility of a slightly more articulate racist. Watch some of those KKK documentaries. Not all of them are inbred morons.

Also, the character is based on a real person, Frank Meeink.
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Even so, I did not find myself convinced by his performance. It's all well to rationalize it, but in the gut it just didn't feel like he hit the right notes. I like the Ebert review posted by ponder - I couldn't get myself to believe that he was consumed by xenophobic rage. Plus, the dialogue came across as an inorganic, extended interview about race relations in the US.
 
cerebus said:
Even so, I did not find myself convinced by his performance. It's all well to rationalize it, but in the gut it just didn't feel like he hit the right notes. I like the Ebert review posted by ponder - I couldn't get myself to believe that he was consumed by xenophobic rage. Plus, the dialogue came across as an inorganic, extended interview about race relations in the US.
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Because he isn't...he was a good kid till his dad got killed and then got taken advantage of by Stacey Keach. I'm guessing a lot of the rhetoric he spouts are not his words at all (even though he was a bright kid like Danny is) but things he was fed by the white supremacists.
 
Cray said:
I think the movie is trying to show how easy it is for otherwise bright and good people to be seduced by bad ideas given certain stresses (his father being shot). A bright and good kid who is then capable of the most appalling violence.
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Very much agree with this.
 
Neoprod said:
Because he isn't...he was a good kid till his dad got killed and then got taken advantage of by Stacey Keach. I'm guessing a lot of the rhetoric he spouts are not his words at all (even though he was a bright kid like Danny is) but things he was fed by the white supremacists.
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Of course he's consumed with rage. He's meant to be the real deal - look at how he's in prison and he gets disgusted with the compromising of his skinhead brethren. He forced a black guy to eat a curb then smashed his head in for goodness sake.
 
I watched this movie quite a long time ago and remember being very impressed. On the second viewing however I was less convinced.

I think the cinematography of certain scenes stuck with me, especially the slow motion scene where he looks at his brother while being arrested. His insane grin and striking tattoos, looking really convincing within the black-and-white shot. The "Nazi's CAN Jump" scenes were also filmed really well.

BUT:

The dialogue seemed very stilted and carefully scripted to get that message across. His persona also shifts very quickly from psycho murderer to affable jailbird to a sobbing rape victim, in what seemed a very short space of time.

I did like however that the flashbacks were shot in B&W, seemingly to try and convey the idea that colour doesn't matter and doesn't define, but rather behaviour. Also the way the young black man also becomes influenced by older role models, inevitably also leading to his life being destroyed when he kills Danny right at the end. Racism doing it destructive job on both sides of the spectrum.

All in all, still a very good movie with a powerful message.

4/5
 
MightyQuin said:
I did like however that the flashbacks were shot in B&W, seemingly to try and convey the idea that colour doesn't matter and doesn't define, but rather behaviour.
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I think that had more to do with distiguishing the present from the past for the viewers.
 
ponder said:
I think that had more to do with distiguishing the present from the past for the viewers.
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I have seen many movies where flashbacks were done in colour as well and the director relied on it's audience intelligence rather, to distinguish between the past and the present.

Here I found a nice attempt at summarising the idea behind the B&W scenes:

Also commanding are the succinct, unbelabored scene in which the reformed Derek shamefully regards his swastika tattoo—an ersatz Scarlet Letter he will never erase, and which marks his whole family as dangerously as himself—and the ongoing division of black-and-white and color footage. This structural decision, it seems, was made not only to clarify the time settings of various scenes (which is already easily legible through hairstyles, dialogue, and even Norton's physical carriage) but to characterize Derek's racist past as the recurring, color-drained nightmare it now represents to him, and to register the "black-and-white" in which Derek as a scalding-hot racist often viewed his own world. The introduction of color to his later sequences is synonymous with his own embrace of the world's diversity and full-blooded potential for community, though he may have made this realization too late.

Source: http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/amhistx.html

The B&W scenes are extremely important in this movie...it is what the whole movie is all about: Black & White. It is used as a tool to emphasize all the shocking and subtle contrasts within this movie and is used effectively a lot of times.

Some examples: Danny blowing white smoke in the black kid's face in the bathroom at school, the skinheads pouring the white milk on the Hispanic's face in the supermarket raid.
 
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Sorry for the late review, and still don't have time to give a comprehensive one right now, but can give a rating:

4/5

I also find myself not loving it as much after years of not seeing it. I remember loving this movie and watching it at least 5 times.
 
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