Abstract

Abstract:

This article argues that BlacKkKlansman (dir. Spike Lee, 2018) speaks to traditions of militant countercinema through its critique of the Hollywood apparatus, and its conflicting strategies of address. Using Francesco Casetti's work on enunciation, this article traces the troubled trajectory of the spectator through the film as they negotiate frequent changes in the mode of enunciation. The spectator is constructed through a process of confrontation: racialized, figurativized, empowered, and robbed of belief. This process is figured as eminently political in BlacKkKlansman. The film insistently associates acts of speech (both cinematic and verbal) with the production of audiences, and audience effects: most notably, with either acts of resistance or hate crimes. Tracing the spectator's passage through the film then also means coming to terms with the film's approach to a politics of address. BlacKkKlansman so contributes to a conversation on the politics of film form that has lineage in 1970s film theory, and the movie revitalizes these debates by bringing race to the center of the cinematic apparatus.

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