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Special Features
- Deleted Footage and Alternate Takes, Music Videos
- James Toback's Video Diary
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Setting his tale in New York City and employing an intriguing mix of established and first time actors, many of them playing themselves on screen, writer/director James Toback explores the ways in which both sides of the black/white equation are essentially attempting to achieve the same basic goal: to gain acceptance in the other side's territory for reasons of either financial gain or personal validation. Here we have, for example, a group of white, upper middle class high school students, disillusioned by the empty materialism of their family and home lives, so drawn to the contemporary trendiness of the black hip-hop culture that they end up emulating and adopting its fashions, its terminology and its angry, anti-establishment attitudes. Yet, acceptance is not a guarantee in any area of life and what these youngsters do not realize is that they are perceived by the blacks as little more than pathetic hangers-on, cultural nomads to be exploited for their willingness to perform sexual favors or rituals of bloodletting when it is most convenient to the users.
Conversely, the blacks find themselves doing virtually the same thing, in this case, cowtowing to the white record industry executives who in turn exploit them for success and profit. Here we have gangster rappers attempting to go "straight" in order to achieve acceptability in the high-class world of the corporate entertainment elite.
Toback explores this often confusing but always fascinating world by laying out its topography in a non-linear fashion. The "story" consists of interlocking and overlapping characters culled from a wide range of social strata. Like a fine jigsaw puzzle, the film reveals a full panoramic picture as the assorted pieces fall nicely into place. The most morally complex plot strand involves a shady undercover cop (Ben Stiller), his ethically ambiguous ex-girlfriend and her new black, basketball star boyfriend. The first two characters in particular so thoroughly defy conventional pigeonholing in terms of moral consistency and clarity of motive that they keep the audience off balance and questioning throughout. In fact, it is this very refusal to simplify the moral (or perhaps amoral) complexities of the world he is showing us that makes Toback's document such a fascinating one to watch.
One could quibble with a few editorial choices, of course. The use of Brooks Shields and Robert Downey Jr. as a couple of bizarre documentary filmmakers seems a bit forced as a way to get the "outside world" into the proceedings. Some of the acting seems a bit amateurish, to say the least, and the dialogue occasionally sounds stilted and poorly rehearsed. And the use of Mike Tyson, appearing as himself, is positively surreal in its effect as we see him beating up a man who has made a sexual advance on him and advising a buddy to commit murder as an act of retaliation. How Toback got Tyson to agree to such an unflattering and downright damning portrayal of himself is truly beyond imagining.
Despite its few weaknesses, "Black and White" provides a searing look into the world of racial relations in this country. For its honesty, bravery and refusal to compromise, this is a film well worth studying and applauding.
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THE MOVIE WAS NOT ABOUT A PERSON TAKING MEDS! Read more
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