I have been a fan of Spike Lee since seeing his breakthrough "She's Gotta Have It" back in the 80's. So when I heard that he was making a movie with Damon Wayans and other members of "In Living Color", the best television comedy and variety show of the past few decades, and the amazing tap-dancer Savion Glover, I was doubly excited. When I read about the subject matter of the film -- a yuppie African-American TV writer who revives the repulsive old-time minstrel show as a prime-time comedy review -- I figured I was in for the same hilarious send-up that the Wayans family & co. are so good at. What I did not anticipate was the explosive synergy between Spike Lee and the comic geniuses he worked with to make this movie.
Never before have I experienced such a variety of extreme emotion in watching a film. Within the space of five minutes, Glover, Tommy Davidson, and the other actors had me laughing, crying, and feeling physically ill, as the raw evil of the minstrel show stereotypes bloomed vividly before my eyes. It's one thing to listen to a sleazy white TV producer, who thinks he's black, enthuse over the profits he's going to make by reviving Aunt Jemimah, Little Black Sambo, Steppin' Fetchit, and other characters from the bad old days; it is another thing entirely to see these characters in full, bright costume, dancing on stage, as if forty-plus years of civil rights and struggle had never happened. To see this is to experience, and understand, terrible, sickening rage.
But the most wrenching moment of "Bamboozled" was also the most subtle, as the two stars of "The New Millenium Minstrel Show" are putting on their blackface makeup, and we see them holding back bitter tears as they awake to the full horror and guilt of what they are doing. This moment alone made the picture for me.
To be fair, I have a few of complaints about this film. As other IMDB reviewers have noted, Spike nearly sabotages this masterpiece with the eruption of climactic murder and violence that have characterized some of his other movies. And as unlikely as the whole TV minstrel show scenario feels, it is completely implausible that any television station would broadcast a live, pre-arranged murder. Finally, it seems beneath Spike to adopt the recent Hollywood convention of using prominent figures like Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran, playing themselves, to lend authenticity to the drama.
Still, let's face it: Spike Lee, and maybe John Sayles, are the only American filmmakers with any real vision these days. Spike, being black, is in the unique position of being America's most brilliant contemporary director and receiving virtually no mainstream attention, largely because of the greedy, racist, unoriginal morons who run Hollywood. In short, "Bamboozled" is a film you really must see. Fifty years from now, when all of last year's Oscar-winning drivel is completely forgotten, serious film lovers and students will be discussing Spike Lee.
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