The ABCs of Spike Lee’s ‘X’

Regarding “The ABCs of ‘X,’ ” Calendar’s cover stories on Malcolm X and the making of the new Spike Lee film (Nov. 15):

As a 44-year-old mostly white guy, I was only mildly interested in how Spike Lee would bring the story of Malcolm X to the screen. As a young man I lived as a witness to most of Malcolm X’s adult life, and sensed very little relevance to draw from.

The Nov. 15 Calendar changed my view of things. The puffball reverence shown to Robert Duvall in “From All-American to All Stalin” contrasted remarkably with the interview “Spike Lee, Speaking to the Point.”

Where the former opens with a fellow actor comparing Duvall to Brando, Clift, De Niro et al., interviewer Elaine Rivera opens the latter with a chronicle of every negative associated with the film “Malcolm X.” If anything makes Lee’s point for him--that he be allowed to approve of those assigned to interview him--the unequal treatment of the two subjects in The Times succeeds.

I went to the opening-day first show of “Malcolm X.” The film is not about the Rodney G. King video, the burning American flag or Lee’s request to be interviewed by African-American journalists. “Malcolm X” is about human beings and the timeless struggle of good and evil.

The struggle of Lee’s Malcolm centers on what is ordained by Allah and what is programmed by America’s anti-Africanism. Lee’s final, bittersweet irony seems to be that ordination from the strongest and purest of gods is not enough to save us from the greed and corruption that surround us in our mortal state.

That a man like Malcolm X will struggle against such overwhelming odds should be an inspiration to all.

LAWRENCE C. CAIRD

Palmdale