Malcolm X & bio-pics in general

I recently saw Spike Lee's "Inside Man," and loved it so much I decided to track down other Spike movies. For some reason, I had missed Malcolm X, which was released in 1992. So I've had a lot of time to catch it, but just never did. There were a couple of things that have kept me away... First, the running time is 201 minutes, which, typically, is wayyy too much time to spend with one movie, imo. There are some films which benefit from a longer running time, but more often than not, that extra 45 minutes or hour is there in because the director does not have the discipline to pare down the work in editing. (Minority Report should have been 90 minutes, for example.) Another reason I avoided Malcolm X is because I'm not a big fan of biopics. We are aware of historical figures for their contributions to society. (And in the case of the rare villain bio-pic, such as the occassional movie about Hitler, we see the detrimental effects that they had on society--the bio-pic as cautionary tale.) While these, on the surface, seem like easy subjects to build a movie around, quite often the filmmaker struggles with the process of encapsulating the subject within the context of a compelling narrative. The questions the filmmaker must answer: where is the story? What is the story arc? Is there one that will satisfy viewers? Quite often the answer is not easy to find. Milos Forman, the man who directed two of the finest biopics ever, Amadeus and The People Vs. Larry Flynt, struggled with Man in the Moon, the biopic of Andy Kaufman. Forman ably conveyed highlights of Andy Kaufman's life, complete with his bizzaro career success, his eccentricities, and even his struggle with cancer. When the movie finished, however, the true character of Andy Kaufman remained inscrutable. Maybe that has to do with the complexitity and mystery of that particular subject. However, I couldn't help feeling that the film was unsatisfying because of it. Which brings us to Malcolm X. I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X a couple of years back and I was immediately struck by the complexity of the man. At times I found it odd that in his early time with Elijah Mohammad, his main concept echoed many white supremacists: namely, segregation. Later, after his trip to Mecca, and his opening up to accepting the assistance of all races to engender healing and advancement, he showed a flexibility that was truly heartening to see. Only when I had finished the book did I see how intractibility and flexibility did not necessairly have to be at odds with each other. You could move from one to the next as needed. I was left curious with how the movie would present these different facets of Malcolm. The film starts out much like another acclaimed biopic, Patton. The first image you see across the screen is an American flag. Of course, viewing Malcolm X, the differences become rapidly apparent as we hear Denzel Washington's voice approximating Malcolm's impassioned tones... "We did not land on Plymouth Rock... Plymouth Rock landed on us!" As the words are spoken the edges of the American flag begin to burn, and they continue to burn until all that is left of the flag is a charred red, white and blue X. It's an audacious beginning and one worthy of Malcolm's rhetoric. There's a lot to cover in Malcolm's life, however, and I still had my doubts if it could be done. The most interesting aspect of his life is his conversion to Islam and his public identity as a racial firebrand. But how did he get to that point? What was his childhood like? His relationships with women? The omniprescent racism that shaped his views and experience? Somehow, Spike gets it all in, and manges to craft it into a solid, forward-moving narrative. There is an easy "story arc" to his life, it's true, as Malcolm goes through his younger days as "Detroit Red," a callow hustler on the make to inevitable incarceration, and conversion to spiritual and political leader. Even the film's ending, a coda featuring a speech by Nelson Mandela, followed by a chorus of children, each one proudly stating "I AM MALCOLM X!" works beautifully, showing us the relevancy of the man and his desire for a better world. In the end, I don't begrudge Spike Lee one minute of running time. He earned each and every one.