Grandpa's Movies: American History X --

This is certainly one of the finest representations of the story of redemption. The redemption in this movie, however, is clearly more human than Hollywood inversion. While many movies allow for redemption with a single act, American History X is a story of life of one man's 'after-life' being his road to redemption, not redemption itself.

Edward Norton plays a white-supremacist upon his return from a three year term in prison. Upon being paroled, Derek (Edward Norton) confronts both the environment that created him, his God-like stature, and the world he left behind. Derek must sever his younger brother and himself from the skin-head culture in which he has been deified. Derek understands why his beliefs were wrong. Derek is honestly sorry for killing two young black men. But his life now must be spent keeping the racist culture from destroying young men and women as it did his.

Norton's character (Derek) is similar to Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice. Both people are sent to prison for crimes of anger, and each exit prison with insight into how they each became who they once were. The key to their respective insights rests in a combination of humility and reason. In the end both men are changed, but neither is simply the opposite of what he once was. For both men are moved to save others from following their original path. A less intelligent man would not necessarily comprehend why his anger flowed forth from his body as illogical rage. A less intelligent man, it seems, is forever using the logic of the smarter, manipulative, men before him. This lesson is not easy, but could have been over- simplified by the director and lost.

American History X does not say that racial-hatred is wrong, it is the individuals who believe in it, and feed it to the dumb and the angry who are.

While American History X does not have a happy ending, the movie is not tragic. The movie is a study of how a man can reflect upon his own thought process and come to understand how his action effect himself and the world. Being intelligent allows the main character to be free, but the viewer must wonder if, under similar circumstances, he or she would make the same choices. When one reflects on United States history, I am afraid that the answer is unfortunately 'No.' But, being human, we can always hope.

--Grandpa