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The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched
American History X is a powerful film about a controversial and disturbing subject: racism in America. Edward Norton plays the part of Derek Vinyard, who is an intelligent young man who falls into the skinhead neo Nazi lifestyle in Venice Beach, California. Stacey Keach plays Cameron Alexander, a white supremacist based on Tom Metzger, and Avery Brooks plays Dr. Bob Sweeney, a black high school teacher who reaches out to his students, both Black and White, to try to get them to turn away from gangs, hatred, and violence.
Edward Furlong plays Daniel Vinyard, the younger brother of Derek, who also gets involved in the neo Nazi skinhead lifestyle once his brother Derek is sent to prison. Derek shoots and murders some Black car jackers who are stealing his truck, but goes over the line in his zealotry, and is sent to prison. While in prison, he rejects racism, and when he gets out, he tries to prevent his younger brother Danny from making the same mistakes as he. But it is not that easy, it is not like a Country Club that you can just quit and walk away from.
Finally, director Tony Kaye wanted his name removed and sued the film company for damages. Edward Norton edited the film, and gave himself a bigger role, according to Kaye, and they fell out over artistic differences. I think that the final product was very good, and I don't see why Tony Kaye didn't want to be associated with it. The film I saw was well directed and covered a very controversial subject remarkably well. I guess it is just that the subject creates very strong feelings, and it is difficult to come to an agreement about how best to convey the proper politically correct line. It was almost one of those "directed by Alan Smithee' situations, but one of the stipulations of using that pseudonym is that you don't discuss your dissatisfaction with the project in public, and Tony Kaye had already taken out ads in Variety that aired his dirty laundry and complaints.
FILMS AND ROLES OF EDWARD NORTON
Frida (2002) .... Nelson Rockefeller
Death to Smoochy (Widescreen Edition) (2002) .... Sheldon Mopes / Smoochy the Rhino
Fight Club (1999) .... The Narrator
The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) .... Alan Isaac
FILMS AND ROLES OF EDWARD FURLONG
Pecker (1998) .... Pecker
Detroit Rock City (New Line Platinum Series) (1999) .... Hawk
The Grass Harp (1995) .... Collin Fenwick
American Heart (1992) .... Nick Kelson
FILMS AND ROLES OF ETHAN SUPLEE
Blow (Infinifilm Edition) (2001) .... Tuna
Chasing Amy - Criterion Collection (1997) .... Fan
The movie ends with a quote from this speech. Just the last paragraph in the movie, but here is a little more of it.
END OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGERAL SPEECH
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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Bought for someone else
I really don't know what to tell you except I bought this show for a friend. She said it is about a guy that goes to prison and turns his life around. When I seen it it didn't seem like my kind of movie so I didn't watch it. She liked it thru. You might need to go off other reviews b/c I can't give a true review since I never seen it.
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Wonderful performance by Norton
This movie would not have been as believable if Edward Norton was not in it. His almost maniacal performance is simply astounding. You can see it in his eyes, he takes this role 100% seriously. It truly is probably his best performance to date and surely worthy of the Oscar nomination. I sometimes find him to be understated, but there is no mistaking that in this film. He owns this role and he is the reason to see this film.
That said, the film itself is nothing truly innovative or spectacular, the subject matter isn't original or shocking, but it did hook me in regardless. Again, the acting made it believable. The prison scenes were an eye opener, thought a tad on the cliché side, but I couldn't help but be moved.
The ending, for me, almost didn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things, but I think the director ended it exaclty where it was supposed to end. In my mind, it could have gone a little longer in regards to an extended ending. Actually, doing some research, I read that a longer ending was planned, but never filmed. If it was, it would have been purely for the shock value.
I would recommend this film to anyone that wants a good story with wonderful performances.
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POWERFUL film from Edward Norton!
this has to be one of the best onscreen performances from Edward Norton. hard to watch in places, but definately a movie he should have won the Oscar for for his portrayal of a Neo-Nazi skinhead. hes definately one of the best actors of this generation, since "Incredible Hulk" is his best film to date, American History X is definately Top 3 of his career.
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American History X
Gripping! Edward Norton and Edward Furlong are incredible actors. The movie is an eye opener about hatred, intolerance, and environmental effects on our behavior. The events in the story could be true to life makes it scary. Compelling story.
