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In 1978, after responding to an advertisement in a local newspaper, Ron Stallworth – the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department – received a call from a man beginning a chapter of the regional Klu Klux Klan. Then, as he later stated in an interview with NPR, he convinced the man on the other end that he was a white supremacist:
I told him that I was a white man, that I hated blacks, Jews, Mexicans, Asians; that I thought the white man had not entered into a fair deal in this country; I was really pissed off because my sister was out with a black guy and it hurt me that her black hands touched her white body; and as a result, I wanted to join the group and do what I could to put an end to all this nonsense.
He said that I was exactly the kind of person they were looking for and that he was very excited to meet me.
It's almost word-for-word (less racial insults for public radio, of course), as Stallworth's version of John David Washington in Spike Lee, an Academy Award nominee, says. BlacKkKlansman. The film is inspired by real events, described by Stallworth in his incredible memoir of 2014 Black Klansman: Race, Hate and the undercover survey on a life, in which Stallworth infiltrated the KKK and found himself face to face with the great magician David Duke.
What is also impressive is that Lee's version of the events is surprisingly close to the actual events, even by Hollywood standards.
"I wanted them to stay true to the basic concepts of law enforcement as much as possible," said Stallworth, who consulted on the film, The Denver Post. "I admit that they had to tweak it, and I gave them a lot of notes, but I'm very happy with the way things have gone, because it portrays the truth of the situation."
Although the film plays with the truth in a few key moments, it stays true to current events, especially compared to other nominees in the Best Film category. This is an interesting year for the Academy Award for Best Picture when six of the eight nominees are based on real events. Bohemian Rhapsody challenges the truth of Freddie Mercury's time with Queen in a questionable manner. Green paperThe story of Dr. Don Shirley's life was disavowed by the famous family of the pianist. Roma is inspired by the childhood of director Alfonso Cuaron. The favourite transforms Queen Anne's life into a dark comedy of artifice. And Vice is basically a long SNL sketch on Dick Cheney.
So where exactly BlacKkKlansman to rule out real events?
Stallworth's love interest in the movie did not really exist. The character of Laura Harrier, Patrice, was invented for the film. Although Stallworth claims to have met an attractive young woman during a speech by Black Panthers leader Stokley Carmichael, he did not flirt with her because he was dating the woman who would become his first wife at the time. When Stallworth finally made contact with the local KKK, he was immediately invited to meet in person, as we see in the movie, although the man Stallworth sent to meet the KKK in real life was an officer named Chuck, who was not Jewish like The Adam Driver character in the movie.
The biggest making of the film is its culminating end when Connie (Ashlie Atkinson) tries to kill Patrice with a bomb that ends up killing two Klansmen. This was invented for a dramatic effect, although Stallworth's memoirs suggest that one of the men he investigated was later arrested for selling dynamite, detonators, rockets and automatic weapons.
But incredibly, most of the craziest moments of the movie are true. For example, Stallworth has actually spoken on the phone many times over the phone, including at a time when he teases the great wizard and asks him if he ever fears a black man is calling him white.
As Stallworth reminded NPR:
"He said that you speak as a very intelligent and intellectual white man, and I can say by the way you pronounce certain words. I said, give me an example. He said that black people tend to pronounce the word ARE, he said that they were pronouncing it AR-RA. And he said, I could say by listening to you that you are not black, because you do not pronounce that word that way. "
His investigation also uncovered two KKK members with a very secret security clearance working for NORAD.
And, of course, Stallworth was actually charged with protecting Duke at a KKK rally and took a picture with him. As many filmmakers would say, adapting true stories, BlacKkKlansman is not a documentary, but compared to some of his nominated colleagues to tell real events, he does everything he can to get closer to the truth.
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