BlacKkKlansman: Adapting a True Life Story

This week we’re going to be talking about BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott.
When I first went out to see BlacKkKlansman, my hope was that I was going to be able to do a podcast about how to write a movie for a political change— to talk about the confluence of race and politics and storytelling and history.
But, my experience of BlacKkKlansman led me to an even more important topic: the role of the truth in adapting a true life story, and how running towards (or away from) that truth can impact the overall experience of your screenplay.
Like always, in his script for BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee has a lot of very interesting things to say about race and politics, particularly about how the white supremacy movement has taken off the hood and the robe, put on the suit, and made themselves frighteningly presentable to the American public.
I think he has a scary message there that’s well told, and I think there are some really transcendent and wonderful moments in this film.
But for all the power of its message, and the appeal of its true-life premise, the actual execution of BlacKkKlansman feels shockingly uneven, bouncing between moments of political insight and compelling storytelling that we expect from Spike Lee, and others that feel predictable, anticlimatic, heavyhanded, or downright false.
What’s causing this unevenness in BlacKkKlansman is a simple problem that many writers fall into when adapting a true life story into a screenplay.
So in this podcast, I’m going to be talking about how– whether you’re writing a political film or a non-political film– you can avoid falling into some of the traps that get in the way of a really tremendous premise.
So let’s talk about BlacKkKlansman.
The premise of a black undercover police officer infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan is just about as good of a premise as you can get. And the fact that this actually happened in the 1970’s is even cooler.
The problem with BlacKkKlansman isn’t in any way its premise.
The problem with BlacKkKlansman is that the writers make the most common mistake when adapting a true life story.
Rather than running towards the truth, they instead end up running toward the same old Hollywood elements we’ve seen in a million films in this genre.
They think this is going to create drama, but instead they end up creating cliché.
If you’ve seen BlacKkKlansman, think about the moments that really stood out to you, the moments that really mattered, the moments that seemed too wild to believe but totally compelling… well, the truth is a lot of those moments were true.
And if you think about the moments that felt a little cliché, a little “seen it before,” a little familiar… well, you probably won’t be too surprised to find out that a lot of those moments weren’t true.
But there’s an even bigger consequence here.
By running towards the Hollywood story, rather than running towards the truth, BlacKkKlansman misses out on the full potential of its premise, not only structurally, but also politically.
And I’m not saying that BlacKkKlansman doesn’t have a powerful political premise at its center. I’m just saying that there’s an even more powerful way to deliver it.
So, let’s start with the biggest most “Hollywood” moment in BlacKkKlansman.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie— Ron Stallworth is a black police officer in the 1970’s. His only dream is to become an undercover police officer. He’s the first black man to become a member of this police department, and of course he’s dealing with a lot of racism, and he’s dealing with the pressure of infiltrating both the Black Power movement and the Ku Klux Klan at the same time.
So, there’s a lot of very interesting stuff happening here, and what makes it most interesting is that this stuff is actually true.