Quentin Tarantino did not direct By Any Means, but he did direct the movie Django Unchained, which grossed $449.8 million worldwide.
Spike Lee did not direct By Any Means, but he did direct the movie BlacKkKlansman, which grossed $93.4 million worldwide.
Before Django Unchained came out, Spike Lee criticized Quentin Tarantino’s film, saying on Twitter (now X): ““American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.”
All three movies – Django Unchained, BlacKkKlansman, and By Any Means – make the creative choice to dramatize a certain period of systematic oppression of black people in a way that excites and thrills the audience. All three movies are also told in a way that reminds the audience of the terror of that oppression. That naturally raises the question – are movies like these a force for good, essentially slipping the spirit of liberation into our minds through entertainment? Or are these movies ultimately misguided, minimizing what was unimaginably horrible by associating them with thrills? Can the same analysis of these films be applied to war films like Saving Private Ryan and this year’s Pressure?
Does it make a difference that Django Unchained was written and directed by a white man, while BlacKkKlansman and By Any Means were directed by black men? Or does it make a difference that, while directed by black men, neither BlacKkKlansman nor By Any Means was exclusively written by black people? Does it make a difference that BlacKkKlansman at least had black people on its writing team, while By Any Means didn’t? Or should we ultimately judge the film by its substance rather than the perspective of its creators?
By Any Means also shares a lot of its DNA with another controversial film – Green Book. (Yet another film famously criticized by Spike Lee). The former is a crime thriller while the latter is an Oscar-winning drama, but both feature a black man and a white man as the main protagonists, traveling in a car with one in the driver’s seat and one in the passenger’s seat, during the 1960s in segregated America, whose relationship is tenuous but ultimately heartwarming for general audiences. Most controversially, both could be argued to perpetuate the “white savior” narrative.
In By Any Means, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s character is portrayed as a rule-follower who has trouble handling the situation at hand, and Mark Wahlberg’s character is portrayed as the badass who can get stuff done. By the end of the film, they are on even ground in this respect, but it doesn’t change the fact that a black man had to “grow up” while his white counterpart didn’t. Again, By Any Means can be distinguished from Green Book in that the former had a black director and the latter had a white director. But again, are we to judge based on the perspectives of the creators, or on the substance of the film?
This article is not intended to condemn anyone or anything that is mentioned. From a craft perspective, all of the movies mentioned in this article are good if not great. By Any Means features two riveting performances as its lead, several exciting set-pieces, and some of the tightest pacing in a movie this year. It is a film that focuses a black man as its main character when it would have been easier for Hollywood to have filmed this from the perspective of his white counterpart, and ultimately, By Any Means forwards diversity in film. That being said, the political dimensions of this film should be up for discussion. It is up to the community to decide if this film is a force for enlightenment or not.
