Malcolm X

The much-hyped Malcolm X happens to be a spiritually enriching testament to the human capacity for change — and surely Spike Lee’s most universally appealing film. An engrossing mosaic of history, myth, and sheer conjecture, this ambitious epic manages to sustain itself for three hours and 21 minutes and overcomes an early frivolity of tone and Lee’s intrusiveness to achieve a stature befitting its subject. Lee, whose enormous affection for his hero suffuses his work, nevertheless resists the temptation to sanitize Malcolm as Richard Attenborough did Gandhi. The civil rights leader, as eloquently portrayed by Denzel Washington, emerges as an immensely likable human being, a one-time black separatist who overcame his own prejudices.

Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.