#1019: LEE, Spike: Bamboozled (2000)
LEE, Spike (United States)
Bamboozled [2000]Spine #1019
Blu-ray
With this blisteringly funny, unapologetically confrontational satire, writer-director Spike Lee examined the past, present, and future of racism in American popular culture, issuing a daring provocation to creators and consumers alike. Under pressure to help revive his network's low ratings, television writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) hits on an explosively offensive idea: bringing back blackface with The New Millennium Minstrel Show. The white network executives love it, and so do audiences, forcing Pierre and his collaborators to confront their public's insatiable appetite for dehumanizing stereotypes. Shot primarily on unvarnished digital video and boasting spot-on performances from Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport, Mos Def, and Paul Mooney, Bamboozled is a stinging indictment of mass entertainment at the turn of the twenty-first century that looks more damning with each passing year.
136 minutes
Color
5.1 Surround
1:77:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Spike Lee was 43 when he wrote and directed Bamboozled.
Other Lee films in the Collection:
#97: Do The Right Thing (1989)
#1160: Malcolm X (1992)
The Film
SOME SPOILERS ARE INEVITABLE
The very first line in the film:
“Satire — 1(a): A literary work in which human vice or folly is ridiculed or attacked scornfully.”
Satire should be subtle. It should creep up on you and awaken some dormant section of your brain and heart and create an epiphany of joy or anger or disgust or ...
But then again, maybe 90% of the audience just won't get it ...
So there's the sledgehammer approach. Hit 'em over head -- over and over again -- until the body is a quivering mass of total comprehension.
This usually doesn't work. An audience will feel put upon; manipulated -- but they'll get the point all right. The truth can be painful, and that bump on your head may still be there in two weeks.
**
Spike Lee takes this approach with Bamboozled. But it turns out his sledgehammer was made of rubber foam, and though it's all too real -- in the end, because Lee is such a brilliant filmmaker, and knows how to spin a yarn -- you end up with that beautiful epiphany, perhaps in spite of yourself.
A hall of mirrors where reflections bounce off one another until one is totally unable to identify the original image.
**
Damon Wayans is Pierre Delacroix, née Peerless Dothan. When he introduces himself to us, Lee has him standing still, facing the camera, which is rotating around his posh clocktower apartment. He pauses before pronouncing his last name, wanting to make sure that he maintains the artifice.
Savion Glover is Manray/Mantan, a tap dancer with extraordinary talent. His buddy, Womack/Sleep 'n Eat (Tommy Davidson, brilliant) is trying to manage him, while Manray hoofs on the streets for spare change.
Jada Pinkett Smith is Sloan Hopkins, Delacroix's assistant.
Michael Rapaport is Dunwitty, a VP exec at the CNS television network, who thinks he is blacker than any real Black person, and has the right to use the "N word" as often as possible, because he's married to a Black woman and has bi-racial kids ...
Thomas Jefferson Byrd is Honeycutt, the warm-up act for the show.
Paul Mooney is Delacroix's father -- Junebug -- a just-getting-by comedian who has too much integrity to sell out. Mooney, on trying to get rich:
"You've never seen a Brinks truck following a hearse, and you never will ..."
**
Terence Blanchard’s score is effective underscoring — particularly in the tragic final scenes, where the music flows gently and delicately underneath a torrent of painful, racist images. A fantastic jazz musician, he alternates between jazz and traditional orchestral scoring with the ease of a Previn, or Bernstein …
Stevie Wonder contributed two songs to the soundtrack: Misrepresented People (which opens the film) and Some Years Ago.
There’s also a nice SW reference when Sleep ‘n Eat says:
“New York City — skyscrapers, and everything!
**
Lee takes on a multitude of obvious targets — but perhaps the most stinging is his portrayal of Gangster Rap. The Mau Maus — led by Sloan’s brother, Julian, who prefers to be called Big Black Africa (Mos Def) — sit around the bar drinking and rapping and saying — one after another — “yo, you know what I mean?”
Final thought from a White Jew:
I wish Lee would quit insisting that slavery was a holocaust. Slavery was — and its present-day equivalent of the MAGA-vomit crowd’s coded “keeping them in their place” — murderous and tragic. But six million Blacks were not dragged from their homes in the millions and sent to the gas chamber. I don’t think that makes any of us White Jewish Liberals racist …
Film Rating (0-60):
55
The Extras
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Ashley Clark.
“Over Bamboozled’s 136 jagged, pulsating minutes, Lee sublimates his frustration into one of the most truly oddball characters of his career: the African American TV executive Pierre Deleacroix, a buppie Icarus whose inadvertent rise and fatal nosedive form the film’s central tragedy. Pierre is a walking affectation, brilliantly played by Wayans with clenched poise, indelible hubris, and a bizarre, clipped accent that, in the character’s mind, presumably signifies sophistication but really sounds more like Kermit the Frog impersonating Sidney Poitier. Delacroix, who, we learn, has changed his name from Peerless Dothan, slots neatly into Lee’s roster of dubious ‘white-acting’ black characters (see also: the finicky Greer Childs [Cleo Anthony] from his 1986 feature debut, She’s Gotta Have It, and Wendell [Wendell Pierce], the odious Republican car salesman from 1996’s Get on the Bus). Through the frightening, fun-house-mirror prism of Delacroix — a man so unsure of his own true identity that he effectively bamboozles himself — Lee trains a dark light on the historically hideous misrepresentation of black people by America’s corporate-entertainment industrial complex, the deleterious effects of this misrepresentation on individuals, and the pivotal role in it that we all, as active and passive consumers, perform.”
Commentary
From 2001 featuring Lee.
A serious commentary, Lee can nevertheless not stop himself from laughing at certain scenes. This uncomfortable spontaneous reaction is underscored by scenes of the audience at the first tapings, looking at one another in bewilderment — “are we supposed to be laughing at this stuff?”
An example: Sleep ‘n Eat does an old minstrel-show routine beginning with the simple declaration: “I don’t know how I is!” — and about his father marrying his step-daughter and all the ensuing genealogical horrors, resulting in his finally declaring, “… and I is my own grandfather!”
Influences:
Brooks: The Producers (1967)
Kazan: A Face in the Crowd (1957) {Spine #970}
Lumet: Network (1976)
Wilder: Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Lee runs into Tommy Hilfiger, who seems so offended by how his multi-billion dollar company is turned into Timmi Hilnigger …
Between Lee and film programmer and critic Clark.
Lee’s perceptive take on the TV and film industry. Although he sometimes seems a bit over-defensive, one comes away from this interview with the feeling that the world be a darker place without Spike Lee.
Interviews
With choreographer and actor Glover, actor Davidson.
The two actors speak about their careers and their roles here, and the difficulties of pulling it all off.
Interview
With costume designer Ruth E. Carter.
Her ninth film with Lee.
Delacroix’s fuchsia shirt!
On Blackface and the Minstrel Show
An interview program featuring film and media scholar Racquel Gates.
“What Bamboozled does is that it makes these issues a contemporary issue, and raises questions about how the minstrel show continues to operate in contemporary popular culture.”
“I think that the shock quality of the ending is about denying the audience a certain type of pleasure. If the film doesn’t end that way, then we’ve actually just laughed at a minstrel show for two hours. By ending it the way Lee does, it disallows us from walking out of the theatre smiling.”
The Making of Bamboozled (2001)
A documentary featuring Lee; Glover; Davidson; actors Smith, Rapaport, and Wayans; and other members of the cast and crew.
Clyde Taylor:
“A lot of people say that Bamboozled is one Spike’s best films … they say, it’s up there with Do the Right Thing (1989) {Spine #97}. They’re not quite right — Bamboozled is Spike’s best film. It’s not a fine, interesting movie with some social issues — it’s a very hard-hitting satire — satirical in the way that Do the Right Thing was not …”
Jack Newfield:
“No film since The Manchurian Candidate (1962) {Spine #803} made me think so much. I think that Bamboozled asks a lot of profound questions …”
Stanley Crouch:
“If one were to look at He Got Game (1998), Summer of Sam (1999) and Bamboozled — one right after the other — how much he’s grown when he was a younger filmmaker. And also, how well he understands the prison of stereotypes.”
Great behind-the-scenes stuff.
Deleted scenes
37
55 + 37 =
Terence Blanchard’s score is effective underscoring — particularly in the tragic final scenes, where the music flows gently and delicately underneath a torrent of painful, racist images. A fantastic jazz musician, he alternates between jazz and traditional orchestral scoring with the ease of a Previn, or Bernstein …
Stevie Wonder contributed two songs to the soundtrack: Misrepresented People (which opens the film) and Some Years Ago.
There’s also a nice SW reference when Sleep ‘n Eat says:
“New York City — skyscrapers, and everything!
**
Lee takes on a multitude of obvious targets — but perhaps the most stinging is his portrayal of Gangster Rap. The Mau Maus — led by Sloan’s brother, Julian, who prefers to be called Big Black Africa (Mos Def) — sit around the bar drinking and rapping and saying — one after another — “yo, you know what I mean?”
Final thought from a White Jew:
I wish Lee would quit insisting that slavery was a holocaust. Slavery was — and its present-day equivalent of the MAGA-vomit crowd’s coded “keeping them in their place” — murderous and tragic. But six million Blacks were not dragged from their homes in the millions and sent to the gas chamber. I don’t think that makes any of us White Jewish Liberals racist …
Film Rating (0-60):
55
The Extras
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Ashley Clark.
“Over Bamboozled’s 136 jagged, pulsating minutes, Lee sublimates his frustration into one of the most truly oddball characters of his career: the African American TV executive Pierre Deleacroix, a buppie Icarus whose inadvertent rise and fatal nosedive form the film’s central tragedy. Pierre is a walking affectation, brilliantly played by Wayans with clenched poise, indelible hubris, and a bizarre, clipped accent that, in the character’s mind, presumably signifies sophistication but really sounds more like Kermit the Frog impersonating Sidney Poitier. Delacroix, who, we learn, has changed his name from Peerless Dothan, slots neatly into Lee’s roster of dubious ‘white-acting’ black characters (see also: the finicky Greer Childs [Cleo Anthony] from his 1986 feature debut, She’s Gotta Have It, and Wendell [Wendell Pierce], the odious Republican car salesman from 1996’s Get on the Bus). Through the frightening, fun-house-mirror prism of Delacroix — a man so unsure of his own true identity that he effectively bamboozles himself — Lee trains a dark light on the historically hideous misrepresentation of black people by America’s corporate-entertainment industrial complex, the deleterious effects of this misrepresentation on individuals, and the pivotal role in it that we all, as active and passive consumers, perform.”
Commentary
From 2001 featuring Lee.
A serious commentary, Lee can nevertheless not stop himself from laughing at certain scenes. This uncomfortable spontaneous reaction is underscored by scenes of the audience at the first tapings, looking at one another in bewilderment — “are we supposed to be laughing at this stuff?”
An example: Sleep ‘n Eat does an old minstrel-show routine beginning with the simple declaration: “I don’t know how I is!” — and about his father marrying his step-daughter and all the ensuing genealogical horrors, resulting in his finally declaring, “… and I is my own grandfather!”
Influences:
Brooks: The Producers (1967)
Kazan: A Face in the Crowd (1957) {Spine #970}
Lumet: Network (1976)
Wilder: Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Lee runs into Tommy Hilfiger, who seems so offended by how his multi-billion dollar company is turned into Timmi Hilnigger …
- Pierre wipes away Sloan's fingerprints on the gun as he's dying!
Between Lee and film programmer and critic Clark.
Lee’s perceptive take on the TV and film industry. Although he sometimes seems a bit over-defensive, one comes away from this interview with the feeling that the world be a darker place without Spike Lee.
Interviews
With choreographer and actor Glover, actor Davidson.
The two actors speak about their careers and their roles here, and the difficulties of pulling it all off.
Interview
With costume designer Ruth E. Carter.
Her ninth film with Lee.
Delacroix’s fuchsia shirt!
On Blackface and the Minstrel Show
An interview program featuring film and media scholar Racquel Gates.
“What Bamboozled does is that it makes these issues a contemporary issue, and raises questions about how the minstrel show continues to operate in contemporary popular culture.”
“I think that the shock quality of the ending is about denying the audience a certain type of pleasure. If the film doesn’t end that way, then we’ve actually just laughed at a minstrel show for two hours. By ending it the way Lee does, it disallows us from walking out of the theatre smiling.”
The Making of Bamboozled (2001)
A documentary featuring Lee; Glover; Davidson; actors Smith, Rapaport, and Wayans; and other members of the cast and crew.
Clyde Taylor:
“A lot of people say that Bamboozled is one Spike’s best films … they say, it’s up there with Do the Right Thing (1989) {Spine #97}. They’re not quite right — Bamboozled is Spike’s best film. It’s not a fine, interesting movie with some social issues — it’s a very hard-hitting satire — satirical in the way that Do the Right Thing was not …”
Jack Newfield:
“No film since The Manchurian Candidate (1962) {Spine #803} made me think so much. I think that Bamboozled asks a lot of profound questions …”
Stanley Crouch:
“If one were to look at He Got Game (1998), Summer of Sam (1999) and Bamboozled — one right after the other — how much he’s grown when he was a younger filmmaker. And also, how well he understands the prison of stereotypes.”
Great behind-the-scenes stuff.
Deleted scenes
A great director knows when to cut scenes that might slow down the film’s pace.
- Mantan and Womack talk Sloan
- Mantan likes her …
- Dunwitty and Dela discuss the plot
- Or rather the choice of director for the pilot: Dela wants to direct it himself; Dunwitty wants to hire a White director who did a Madonna video …
- Delacroix meets Jukka (Jani Blom)
- Who didn’t understand what the Negro meant!
- Wishing good luck
- Dela and Sloane, as Mantan and Womack put on their blackface …
- Delacroix with his mother
- Re: seeing his father (Junebug) …
- Mantan live at the Apollo
- Lee must have hated to cut this scene. The audience (including the Mau Maus) have no idea what Mantan is all about … once he comes out of that huge mouth, they start throwing their popcorn boxes …
- Big Black and 1/16th log on
- Or try to … the site is so popular they can’t log on …
- Manray gets fired
- Extended scene which ends with Dela telling Jukka to “fuck off” …
- Murray’s alley dance
- Another tough one to cut … Mantan does an angry tap dance full of incredible virtuosity …
- The hostage crisis
- Trying to pin down the location of the kidnappers. One brief exchange might have been included — Sloan blames Dela for the mess, and asks if he’d watched “the tape” yet. He hadn’t. This would have previewed the final scene between them, but it probably couldn’t be slotted into the right place …
- Alternate dance of death
- Mau maus’ recording session intertwined with scenes of FBI agents threatening Dela and Womack …
Music videos and commercials
- Mau Maus: Blak Iz Blak
- Government got the black phobia / that’s why they tap my black Nokia
- Mau Maus: Blak Iz Blak (old version)
- Distorted audio from the audition sequene, combined with recording session …
- Gerald Levert: Dream With No Love
- Mellow song …
- Da Bomb spots
- Timmi Hillnigger spots
Poster gallery and trailer
Several dozens posters; incredible work by the art department …
Great trailer …
Extras Rating (0-40):
Extras Rating (0-40):
37
55 + 37 =
92
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