True Stories 42: 10s—BlacKkKlansman

This is one of those stories that seems so far-fetched that you’d think Hollywood made it up. But, as the saying goes, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Or, in this case, truth surpasses most fiction we writers can dream up.

BlackKkKlansman by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee, tells the all too true story of how a rookie cop—the first Black cop, Ron Stallworth, hired in the Colorado Springs police department—goes undercover to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.

Set in the early 70s, part of the fascination of this film is seeing the kind of discrimination Stallworth had to deal with from his own colleagues in the police department. He’s squirreled away in the records room but wants to get out there and DO something, so asks to go undercover on the drug squad but is instead assigned to go undercover at a Black student rally where Stokely Carmichael is scheduled to speak.

Eventually he gets the idea to try to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and recruits a colleague, Flip Zimmerman, who is Jewish, to assist him.

Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2eL3YithTc

Although the film takes a look at this very serious subject, it also finds moments of humor to amaze us as to what’s going on. I mean, you’ve got a Black and a Jew pretending to be supporters of a ‘white America’ that would exclude Blacks, Jews, and any other minorities. Stallworth connects with the KKK leaders on the phone but can’t, of course, go to meet with them as he’s Black, so his colleague Zimmerman pretends to be Stallworth to attend the in-person meetings and demonstrations of the KKK.

As you watch the film, you sort of can’t believe they’re going to be able to pull this off, but boy are you rooting for them!

There’s a love story that runs through the film, too. Stallworth meets a Black woman demonstrator in his first undercover assignment when he’s pretending to be someone else. So there’s another conflict—how do you manage to woo a woman who thinks you’re someone else when you’ve actually developed feelings for her?

The dual stories are a good example of how to add more tension to your script. Would the film have been OK with just the story of infiltrating the KKK? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s possible—look, at Spotlight a film we’ve talked about previously. You can certainly keep the tension going if you concentrate fully on an investigation as long as you keep it fast-moving and full of twists. But adding the personal dimension to Stallworth’s story just maximized our desire to see him succeed. Adding that personal twist to a story is often a good idea.

Next week we move to a tale called The Irishman.

Copyright © Diane Lake

02Apr23

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com