''Malcolm X'', also known as ''Malcolm X: His Own Story As It Really Happened'', is a 1972 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by Arnold Perl. It is based on the 1965 book '' The Autobiography of Malcolm X''.

Production

Marvin Worth and Perl started working on ''Malcolm X'' in 1969, four years after the human rights activist's assassination. The pair initially intended for the film to be a drama, but in the end they made a documentary when some people close to Malcolm X refused to talk to them. Worth recalled in 1993, "I mostly went for the public figure, rather than the private man. I aimed for showing the evolution of the man and what he had to say. I wanted to do it with the public speeches." Archival footage,

newsreels A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...

and excerpts of speeches given by Malcolm were utilized in the film.AFI, Catalog
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Betty Shabazz Betty Shabazz (born Betty Dean Sanders; May 28, 1934/1936 – June 23, 1997), also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was married to Malcolm X. Shabazz grew up in Detroit, Michigan, where her foste ...

, Malcolm X's widow, served as a consultant to the film-makers. She was so pleased with the resulting film, she took her six daughters—who ranged in age from six to thirteen—to see it. Afterwards, one of them asked, "Daddy was everything to you, wasn't he?"

Reception

According to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', ''Malcolm X'' garnered "enthusiastic reviews". ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' wrote:

For Warner Bros. to make a documentary about Malcolm X seems about as likely as for the
D.A.R. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promot ...
to sponsor the Peking Ballet. That the film should come from such a source is the first surprise. The second is that it is good—a fair forum for Malcolm's fundamental ideas and an exceptional visual chronicle of how those ideas took shape.

In his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Howard Thompson described it as "a generally rounded, often fascinating movie". Thompson also wrote that the film was "surprisingly balanced". Jay Carr wrote in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' in 1993 that ''Malcolm X'' was "essential viewing". William Hageman wrote in the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' in 2011 that the documentary "does a better job of capturing the times" than

Spike Lee Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...

's 1992 '' Malcolm X''.

Accolades

The film was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for Best Documentary Feature.

Home media

''Malcolm X'' was released on DVD in 2005 as bonus material with the two-disc special edition of Lee's film. In 2012, it was issued on

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

as part of the Blu-ray 20th-anniversary edition of Lee's film.

References

External links