by Theloniousjay
Spike Lee is a master of his craft and one of the great storytellers of African-American experience. Yet, even the great ones catch an L sometimes.
Lee’s public spat with Clint Eastwood over the absence of African-Americans from his much-celebrated war dramas was the biggest promotional device for Miracle at St. Anna. Regardless of which side of the argument one fell on, expectations for Miracle were high, especially after taking on a so-called god of the industry. Justified as his beef is however (though I would argue less with Eastwood than with the Hollywood way in particular), I had a nagging suspicion that whatever Miracle would be, it wouldn’t be on a plane with other war epics – for better or for worse.
The sour relationship between Lee and the Hollywood guard is no secret, so when I read a Variety review of the film’s bow at Toronto, I figured that others might follow suit. That particular reviewer seemed to take a bizarre pleasure in using the word ‘nigger’ in his assessment, although there is neither rampant usage of the epithet in the film nor is it one long ‘blame whitey’ tirade. Several other reviews I noticed, from traditional newspapers to black entertainment blogs all seemed to have their penknives drawn as well. How bad could it be?
It’s pretty bad.
Viewers assume that the characters they are meant to care about are the four men we follow in the Buffalo Soldiers regiment. However, there is less effort spent developing them than on the gaggle of Italian supporting characters they meet in the Tuscan countryside. Only in snippets of poorly-written dialogue are the soldiers’ feelings about their involvement in the war made evident. Conversely, the story of Angelo, the lad whom the soldiers encounter along the war path and who certainly plays a crucial role in the final moments, gets full treatment. Add this to the stories of two sparring Italian Partisans, father-daughter tensions, and general Nazi mania and you have a recipe for a disorienting narrative progression. And even as someone who doesn’t frequent many war flicks, there isn’t enough action to hold you through 160 minutes.
I actually don’t have that much of a gripe with the lack of, as the soldiers put it, ‘boom boom.’ American war epics have never been attractive to me, partly because I know as an historian that black contributions to every American conflict since the Revolutionary War (what up, Crispus Attucks!) have been overlooked. Additionally, my own taste for drama in films skews toward subtle, psychological thrills and less so pyrotechnics. But, especially as the sculpted head that plays talisman to the narrative is the result of a battle at Florence, more combat scenes would have grounded the film and solidified its place in the war film canon.
What excited me about Miracle, despite its letdowns in other areas, was its ability to present a brand new perspective on familiar events without simply being a black Patton. Through the film, you can see hints of the soldiers’ frustration with a country that denies them freedom in spite of their having fought and died to grant it to others. Especially in an Obama year, any reminder of past struggles serves as a tool to advance and evolve the black American narrative. Even with the difficulties Lee faced in finding funding for the film, I’m sure other black filmmakers will meet the challenge to bring the myriad other stories to light.
The film’s greatest accomplishment, then, is in its ability to inspire viewers to extract their own significance from it – but unfortunately, that’s the only one. You could read the Wikipedia entry for that.
