bulworth (part one) - by mbowen august, 1998

i've got to hastily see bulworth, because i am hearing so many different things. stanley crouch
on one hand trashes it as a superficial lipsynch. so here's what i'll do. i'll presume that to be
the case and view it from the perspective of this, one of my favorite baldwin excerpts:

"For several years it had been his fancy that he belonged in those dark streets uptown
precisely becuase the history written in the color of his skin contested his right to be there. He
enjoyed this , his right to be being everywere contested; uptown, his alienation had been made
visible and therefore, almost bearable. It had been his fancy that danger there, was more real,
more open, than danger was downtown and that he, having chosen to run these dangers, was
snatching his manhood from the lukewarm waters of mediocrity and testing it in the fire. He
had felt more alive in Harlem, for he had moved in a blaze of rage and self-congratualation
and sexual excitement, with danger, like a promise, waiting for him everywhere. And,
nevertheless, in spite of all this daring, this running of risks, the misadventures which had
actually befallen him had been banal indeed and might have befallen him anywhere. His
dangerous, overwhelming lust for life had failed to involve him in anything deeper than
perhaps half a dozen extremely casual acquaintanceships in about as many bars. for
memories, he had one or two marijuana parties, one or two community debauches, one or
two girls whose names he had forgotten, one or two addresses which he had lst. He knew that
Harlem was a battlefield and that a war was being waged there day and night -- but of the war
aims he knew nothing."

"And this was due not only to the silence of the warriors --their silence being, anyway
spectacular in that it rang so loud: it was due to the fact that one knew of battles only what
one had accepted of one's own. He was forced, little by little, against his will, to realize that in
running the dangers of Harlem he had not been testing his manhood or heightening his sense
of life. He had merely been taking refuge in the outward adventure in order to avoid the clash
and tension of the adventure proceeding inexorably within. Perhaps this was why he
sometimes seemed to surprise in the dark faces which watched him in a hint of amused and
not entirely unkind contempt. He must be poor indeed, they seemed to say, to have been
driven here. They knew that he was driven, in flight: the liberal, even revolutionary sentiments
of which he was so proud meant nothing to them whatever. He was just a poor white boy in
trouble and it was not in the least original of him to come running to the niggers."