American History X

A film set in Los Angeles. Derek comes out of prison. Three years earlier he killed two men outside his house, and at the time he led a neo-Nazi group. His younger brother Danny is waiting for him. He has taken Derek as a model, joined the same group, and got into trouble at school over an assignment. The film takes place in one day and is told in flashback. The present is in colour, the past in black and white. The past shows how it started. A dinner table, a father killed while working as a fireman, a newspaper interview, and a man organising a young man's anger. The prison section is where the change happens. Derek ends up isolated inside his own group and talks to someone he did not expect to talk to. What the narrative is interested in is not racism but inheritance: the film shows step by step where a boy got it from, and treats the anger as something handed down rather than as an idea. The kerb scene is the best known and hardest thing in the film; the narrative places it at the end of the flashback, which increases its weight. The production ended in a fight. Before the director could finish his cut the studio worked with the lead actor instead; Tony Kaye was unhappy with the result and tried to have his name removed, and the lawsuits and advertisements he took out became news at the time. Edward Norton was nominated for an Academy Award for the part. Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo, Avery Brooks and Stacy Keach are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who wants a hard, direct film built on a performance. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to violence; several scenes are unbearable on purpose.