American History X (Wide Screen) > Reviews > He learned this nonsense and he can unlearn it too

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	explicit, brilliant dilaogue, dareing view .
Disadvantages:	ending

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

"Racists are so stupid. Hating people just because they're black. We're all the same underneath"

What is revealed in this film is that often nothing could be further than the truth- often racists and members of hate groups are frighteningly intelligent. Intelligence in the sense of being very selective about what they read and learn which supports their viewpoint.

There are many racist lectures given by Ed Norton's character, Derek Vinyard which ring totally accurate to Neo Nazi propaganda I've stumbled on whilst net surfing, or even watching Newsnight interviewing Nick Griffin, head of the British Nationalist Party of racists, thugs and conmen who are trying to pass themselves off as a respectable electable political party. Describing affirmative action conspiracies, how racist comments should be protected under the Constitutional rights to free speech, the high statistics of crime committed by African Americans in proportion to how they are a comparatively small population, all the controversial elements of Hip-Hop music, and right down to the argument about how the video camera footage of Rodney King being beaten by police officers was a segment of film taken out of context, hiding how the beating was legitimately provoked. I've read stuff like this and its plethora of statistics and its view outside of the PC dogma is absolutely hypnotising, because it can make you feel like you're experiencing a learning revolution.

Ed Norton's character, Derek is an easy target for being brainwashed by the Neo Nazi group. He is in his teenage formative years, and his family live in a neighbourhood where the Bloods and Crips gangs are active. Gang members even attend the same school as him and his younger brother Danny (played by Edward Furlong), and naturally they both fall target to reverse racist persecution, and the final clincher is when their father is shot without motive by a black drug addict.

Avery Brooks plays his teacher Bob Sweeney, and although he is black and has a history of suffering to the racism of white supremacy groups, he recognises the potential for Ed Norton to do well academically, and knows that at this stage he can be re-educated to reject Nazi philosophy. He recognises that racist teenagers going through angsty motions are redeemable in a way that racist adults with matured bigoted perspective aren't. He is no Uncle Tom, he aims to see hatred conquered by knowledge and truth.

But Ed Norton grows into a man. He has his head shaved, he has a Nazi Swastica tatoo grafted on his shoulderblade, he recruits more disaffected youngsters to become Neo-Nazis and commit acts of vandalism. When he is visited by his mother's new boyfriend, who is Jewish and who shares her hopes of shaking him from the Nazi rhetoric, they share dinner together as a family and he begins prattling on about how degenerate African Americans are, a long tyrade of statistics, pop culture insights and general hateful verbiage. His sister tries to discourage him from his rant and he nearly strangles her for interrupting him while he's making a point. Provoked to rage now, he begins accusing his teacher of being a "n**ger loving k*ke" who is only chasing his mother for pureile motives. The teacher leaves quietly, regretfully telling the mother "I'm so sorry- he's gone!"

And its true, he's become an adult and his thought processes are set in stone. Now that he's come to his opinion about ethnic minorities and won't change it, it isn't long before he ends up in prison for murder.

What I like about the film is that it does speak volumes about redemption, but expresses it in the most brutal and realistic ways- Ed Norton is a character who won't change his now matured racist world view. The film acknowledges that a man like him can change- but it takes a shocking, horrific act of violence and psychological cruelty to change him. The kind of trauma that causes the most crippling confusion and personality disintegration- and thats the only way his racist thought processes begin to unravel. It's not merely the fact that the Neo-Nazis turn on him, or the fact that he befriends black prisoners and learns of how the system has done them over. Those experiences would be nothing to change him without the trauma.

It's an incredibly poignant moment where Avery Brooks visits him in the prison hospital. His former student lying on his chest in bed, naked whilst he recieves anal stitches. He is crying, because he has been raped, as many prison inmates are in a disturbing contradiction to all the rampant homophobic attitudes in Prison. But he was raped by his fellow Neo-Nazis- suffering a rape has been described as like a firecracker has gone off inside your body and mind and the pain and confusion within is tremendous and lasts years at least. After all the violent thug posturing and the fierce articualtions of Nazi teachings, here he is at his weakest point. If the rape had been committed by an ethnic group and if his visitor was also a Neo-Nazi, he would probably be brainwashed again, but the right person is there instead, a man of truth and positive faith and asks the essential rhetorical question "has anything you've done actually made you feel better?"

And of course it hasn't because his hatred never died no matter who he intimidated, or roughed up or even murdered in cold blood, it never purged his rage. So he comes out and becomes determined to save his brother from the life. He plays along at first, going with his brother to a Neo-Nazi Rock night, where he meets the man who first recruited him, he now recognises him as a predator who brainwashes weak minds and exposes him for the coward and the con man that he really is. But of course the moment he wants out, the Neo Nazis don't let him walk, his former friends circle him, disgusted and pointing guns in his face. As far as they're concerned he should be killed for being a traitor, should be killed for having the individuality to reject their philosophy, revealing the 'protection racket' and 'freedom of speech' arguments as a vulgar farce. But will Derek and his brother end up dying for his beliefs?

This was Tony Kaye's directorial debut and so far its his only film. Clearly he takes strong influence from Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino in using the type of overcast, grainy, sharp and shade excenuating film. He differentiates between the past and present by shooting the scenes of the past in black and white. What differentiates his style from Tarantino or Scorsese is that character's faces are frequently given the close up treatment. In some places it's intimate, in others its intimidating and in your face, highlighting visuals as bright and as textured as fire- the film feels very humid.

This intimidating style suits well the dialogue which is excessive and intense (in-fact very reminiscent of Tarantino and Scorsese), throughout the first half of the film. The dialogue of Nazi propaganda bombards the viewer and the other characters, whose words are literally run down by the persistent and unletting verbiage. In the second half, of course things calm down and conversations become more easy to navigate. There's no need for loaded arguments, just a few words of truth say it all- "it's all bullsh*t", and of course allows the people around Derek to communicate with him without feeling either controlled, smothered, or shut out. Because Derek knows that he can only educate his brother against the Neo-Nazi cult, he can't control him, he can't ban him from going to them because he would just go there to rebel anyway. Indeed, Ed Norton makes a fantastic performance here as a man of duality, whether playing a firey eyed murderous thug, or a broken and trembling rape victim, or a fiercely positive and gentle changed man with deep peace of mind.

It is true that the dialogue is heavily racially loaded, packing every piece of White Supremacy rhetoric into its content. Coupled with the images of brutal violence and murder against black people which seem to emote the climax of that hatred and demonising, it could be viewed as an unholy marriage of permissive racist violence, but somehow it sits easier with me than the similar racist content in "Taxi Driver". Because it succeeds at a resolution- not an easy one as it acknowledges the problem of black and mexican youth gangs, wielding guns and persecuting their white neighbours, and the disaffection it causes which breeds Neo-Nazism, and truth be told we are presented with only two black characters we are able to warm to positively. But it also acknowledges that as a reactionary group, the Neo Nazis are no better morally or aspirationally. They are a dead end led by vulgar oppurtunists who will keep you in the gutter and crush your individuality because they will not let you out alive.

However I'm only going to give this film four stars because of its nihilistic and sudden ending which doesn't really guide us properly to cohesion or resolution. Despite the fact that a lot happens in the film, characters develop and change exceptionally, confrontations are fierce and deadly, as are discussions, it is all rounded off by an authentic turn of events but which don't really feel right or seem to respect the essential elements of conclusion, like a reflection of reality but without the art it feels unexplainable, like "Huh?!".