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101-551: BlacKkKlansman is a 2018 American biographical crime comedy-drama film directed by Spike Lee and written by Charlie Wachtel , David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Lee, loosely based on the 2014 memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth . The film stars John David Washington as Stallworth, along with Adam Driver , Laura Harrier , and Topher Grace . It was Harry Belafonte 's last feature film before his death in April 2023. Set in

202-656: A slave rebellion that started during the French Revolution of Saint-Domingue in 1791. Over the next decade, thousands of refugees landed in Louisiana from the island, including Europeans, Creoles, and Africans, some of the latter brought in by each free group. They greatly increased the French-speaking population in New Orleans and Louisiana, as well as the number of Africans, and the slaves reinforced African culture in

303-669: A Fairytale (2006), and Howard Stern in Private Parts (1997). In 2018, the musical biopic Bohemian Rhapsody , based on the life of Queen singer Freddie Mercury , became the highest-grossing biopic in history at the time. In 2023, it was surpassed by Oppenheimer , based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II. Louisiana Louisiana (French: Louisiane [lwizjan] ; Spanish: Luisiana [lwiˈsjana] ; Louisiana Creole : Lwizyàn )

404-606: A Spanish expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1542, Hernando de Soto 's expedition skirted to the north and west of the state (encountering Caddo and Tunica groups) and then followed the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico in 1543. Spanish interest in Louisiana faded away for a century and a half. In the late 17th century, French and French Canadian expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established

505-543: A foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. With its first settlements, France laid claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. In 1682, the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV of France. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (now Ocean Springs, Mississippi ),

606-544: A growing town. This became a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places, although the commodity crop in the south was primarily sugar cane. Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country , around present-day St. Louis, Missouri . The latter

707-505: A rich southern biota , including birds such as ibises and egrets , many species of tree frogs —such as the state-recognized American green tree frog —and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish . More elevated areas, particularly in the north, contain a wide variety of ecosystems such as tallgrass prairie , longleaf pine forest and wet savannas ; these support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of terrestrial orchids and carnivorous plants . Over half

808-599: A special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $ 10   million. However, on April 11, 1803, French foreign minister Talleyrand surprised Livingston by asking how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana, not just New Orleans and the surrounding area (as Livingston's instructions covered). Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time (leaving them with no ability to obtain

909-518: A war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory. It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Shortly after the United States took possession, the area was divided into two territories along the 33rd parallel north on March 26, 1804, thereby organizing the Territory of Orleans to the south and

1010-676: Is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States . It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states , it ranks 20th in land area and the 25th in population , with roughly 4.6 million residents. Reflecting its French heritage , Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes , which are equivalent to counties , making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs ). Baton Rouge

1111-624: Is a Latin suffix that can refer to "information relating to a particular individual, subject, or place." Thus, roughly, Louis + ana carries the idea of "related to Louis." Once part of the French colonial empire , the Louisiana Territory stretched from present-day Mobile Bay to just north of the present-day Canada–United States border , including a small part of what are now the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan . The area of Louisiana

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1212-534: Is estimated to have had a population of more than 20,000. The Plaquemine culture is considered ancestral to the historic Natchez and Taensa peoples, whose descendants encountered Europeans in the colonial era. By 1000 in the northwestern part of the state, the Fourche Maline culture had evolved into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians occupied a large territory, including what

1313-572: Is nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for Driver, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards , including Outstanding Male Actor for Washington. The American Film Institute also included it in its Top 10 Films of the Year. BlacKkKlansman was nominated for six Academy Awards and won Best Adapted Screenplay . Nominations included Best Picture , Lee for Best Director , and Driver for Best Supporting Actor . The film

1414-967: Is now eastern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, northeast Texas , and northwest Louisiana. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present. The Caddo and related Caddo-language speakers in prehistoric times and at first European contact were the direct ancestors of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma of today. Significant Caddoan Mississippian archaeological sites in Louisiana include Belcher Mound Site in Caddo Parish and Gahagan Mounds Site in Red River Parish. Many current place names in Louisiana, including Atchafalaya , Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches ), Caddo, Houma , Tangipahoa , and Avoyel (as Avoyelles ), are transliterations of those used in various Native American languages. The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528 when

1515-619: Is often a balance between similarity in looks and ability to portray the characteristics of the person. Anthony Hopkins felt that he should not have played Richard Nixon in Nixon because of a lack of resemblance between the two. The casting of John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror was objected to because of the American Wayne being cast as the Mongol warlord. Egyptian critics criticized

1616-408: Is partly testament to Mr. Driver's ability to tuck one performance inside another, but it also testifies to a stark and discomforting truth. Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white. Don't sleep on this movie." In his review of the film for Vulture , David Edelstein found the film to be a potent antidote for previous films that Lee sees as unduly supportive of

1717-589: Is speaking. At the rally, Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas, president of the Black Student Union at Colorado College . While taking Ture to his hotel, Patrice is stopped by patrolman Andy Landers, a racist officer in Stallworth's precinct, who threatens Ture and gropes Patrice. Following the rally, Stallworth is reassigned to the intelligence division. After reading about a local division of the Ku Klux Klan in

1818-544: Is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity. Many Coles Creek sites were erected over earlier Woodland period mortuary mounds. Scholars have speculated that emerging elites were symbolically and physically appropriating dead ancestors to emphasize and project their own authority. The Mississippian period in Louisiana was when the Plaquemine and the Caddoan Mississippian cultures developed, and

1919-571: Is the place of origin of the Mound Builders culture during the Middle Archaic period , in the 4th millennium BC . The sites of Caney and Frenchman's Bend have been securely dated to 5600–5000 BP (about 3700–3100 BC), demonstrating that seasonal hunter-gatherers from around this time organized to build complex earthwork constructions in what is now northern Louisiana. The Watson Brake site near present-day Monroe has an eleven-mound complex; it

2020-516: Is the state's capital, and New Orleans , a French Louisiana region, is its largest city with a population of about 383,000 people. Louisiana has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the south; a large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River . Much of Louisiana's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp . These contain

2121-658: The Du Maine and the Aurore , arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 500 black slaves coming from Africa. Previous slaves in Louisiana had been transported from French colonies in the West Indies. By the end of 1721, New Orleans counted 1,256 inhabitants, of whom about half were slaves. In 1724, the French government issued a law called the Code Noir ("Black Code" in English) which regulated

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2222-723: The Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. It was subsequently nominated for four Golden Globes , including Best Motion Picture – Drama . Lee was nominated for Outstanding Feature Film by the Directors Guild of America and the producers were nominated for the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture . The film was also nominated for four Critics Choice Awards , including Best Picture , seven Satellite Awards , including Best Director for Lee, and

2323-541: The top 10 films of 2018 . At the 76th Golden Globe Awards , it earned four nominations, including Best Motion Picture – Drama . In 1972, Ron Stallworth is hired as the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department . Assigned to work in the records room, he tires of being bullied and applies to be an undercover officer. He is assigned to infiltrate a local rally where national civil rights leader Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael)

2424-538: The wire Zimmerman is wearing, breaks the Kendricksons' kitchen window as a distraction. Stallworth begins dating Patrice without telling her that he is a police officer. After passing information to the Army CID about active-duty members, he learns from an FBI agent that two members are personnel stationed at NORAD , a critical, high-security defense facility. Duke visits Colorado Springs for Stallworth's induction into

2525-460: The 1970s in Colorado Springs , Colorado , it follows the first African-American detective in the city's police department as he sets out to infiltrate and expose the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. The film was produced by Lee, Raymond Mansfield, Shaun Redick, Sean McKittrick , Jason Blum , and Jordan Peele . It was packaged by Andy Frances, Stallworth's manager. QC Entertainment purchased

2626-495: The 2017 Unite the Right rally , the hit and run attack that killed and injured protesters, part of a speech by David Duke, and comments by President Donald Trump . It ends with a dedication to Heather Heyer (who was killed in the attack) and lastly, shows an upside-down American flag fading to a black-and-white American flag, before fading to black. In July 2015, screenwriters/co-producers Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz discovered

2727-622: The Acadians, who became the ancestors of Louisiana's Cajuns . Spanish Canary Islanders, called Isleños , emigrated from the Canary Islands of Spain to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783. In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte reacquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso , an arrangement kept secret for two years. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville brought

2828-636: The Crown's transfer of the Illinois Country 's governance from Canada to Louisiana—may have featured the broadest definition of Louisiana: all land claimed by France south of the Great Lakes between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies . A generation later, trade conflicts between Canada and Louisiana led to a more defined boundary between the French colonies; in 1745, Louisiana governor general Vaudreuil set

2929-497: The Klan. Over the real Stallworth's protests, the detective is assigned to a protection detail for Duke. Once Zimmerman, masquerading as Stallworth, is initiated, Connie Kendrickson leaves the ceremony to place an explosive device at a local civil rights rally. The real Stallworth realizes her intentions and alerts local police officers. When Connie notices a heavy police presence at the rally, she puts Felix's backup plan into action and plants

3030-759: The Moon (1999), Downey as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992) and as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer (2023), Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004), Thompson and Hanks as P. L. Travers and Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014), and Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Some biopics purposely stretch

3131-599: The Seven Years' War (generally referred to in North America as the French and Indian War ). This included the lands along the Gulf Coast and north of Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, which became known as British West Florida. The rest of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, as well as the "isle of New Orleans", had become a colony of Spain by the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) . The transfer of power on either side of

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3232-609: The Spanish "cimarron", meaning which means "fierce" or "unruly." In the late 18th century, the last Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory wrote: Truly, it is impossible for lower Louisiana to get along without slaves and with the use of slaves, the colony had been making great strides toward prosperity and wealth. When the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, it was soon accepted that slaves could be brought to Louisiana as easily as they were brought to neighboring Mississippi , though it violated U.S. law to do so. Despite demands by United States Rep. James Hillhouse and by

3333-532: The United States acquired the territory in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, France and Spain jockeyed for control of New Orleans and the lands west of the Mississippi. In the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River, in a region referred to as the German Coast . France ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain in 1763, in the aftermath of Britain's victory in

3434-459: The United States on August 10, 2018, which was chosen to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville rally . BlacKkKlansman grossed $ 49.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $ 44.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $ 93.4 million, against a production budget of $ 15 million. In the United States and Canada, BlacKkKlansman was released, and

3535-403: The United States, was disturbed by Napoleon's plans to re-establish French colonies in North America. With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. Jefferson authorized Robert R. Livingston , U.S. minister to France, to negotiate for the purchase of the city of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi, and free navigation of

3636-564: The United States. The payment was made in United States bonds , which Napoleon sold at face value to the Dutch firm of Hope and Company , and the British banking house of Baring , at a discount of 87 + 1 ⁄ 2 per each $ 100 unit. As a result, France received only $ 8,831,250 in cash for Louisiana. English banker Alexander Baring conferred with Marbois in Paris, shuttled to the United States to pick up

3737-473: The United States. The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation. Commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. Historians believe the revocation of the right of deposit was prompted by abuses by the Americans, particularly smuggling, and not by French intrigues as was believed at the time. President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed James Monroe

3838-697: The Upper South or transported to New Orleans and other coastal markets by ship in the coastwise slave trade . After sales in New Orleans, steamboats operating on the Mississippi transported slaves upstream to markets or plantation destinations at Natchez and Memphis. Unusually for a slave-state, Louisiana harbored escaped Filipino slaves from the Manila Galleons . The members of the Filipino community were then commonly referred to as Manila men, or Manilamen, and later Tagalas , as they were free when they created

3939-462: The Upper South to the Deep South, two thirds of them in the slave trade. Others were transported by their owners as slaveholders moved west for new lands. With changing agriculture in the Upper South as planters shifted from tobacco to less labor-intensive mixed agriculture, planters had excess laborers. Many sold slaves to traders to take to the Deep South. Slaves were driven by traders overland from

4040-556: The West Indies, Germany, and Ireland. It experienced an agricultural boom, particularly in cotton and sugarcane, which were cultivated primarily by slaves from Africa. As a slave state, Louisiana was one of the original seven members of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . Louisiana's unique French heritage is reflected in its toponyms, dialects, customs, demographics, and legal system. Relative to

4141-577: The biggest slave market in the United States, which contributed greatly to the economy of the city and of the state. New Orleans had become one of the wealthiest cities, and the third largest city, in the nation. The ban on the African slave trade and importation of slaves had increased demand in the domestic market. During the decades after the American Revolutionary War, more than one million enslaved African Americans underwent forced migration from

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4242-406: The bonds, took them to Britain, and returned to France with the money—which Napoleon used to wage war against Baring's own country. When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised. He had authorized the expenditure of $ 10   million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $ 15   million on a land package which would double

4343-418: The book Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth . They interviewed Stallworth and wrote a spec screenplay , then pitched the script to producers Shaun Redick and Ray Mansfield. They brought the property to QC Entertainment, which had co-produced the successful 2017 film Get Out . QC again teamed up with Jason Blum 's company Blumhouse Productions , and Jordan Peele 's company Monkeypaw Productions , to produce

4444-454: The casting of Louis Gossett Jr. , an African American actor, as Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in the 1983 TV miniseries Sadat . Also, some objected to the casting of Jennifer Lopez in Selena because she is a New York City native of Puerto Rican descent while Selena was Mexican American . Because the figures portrayed are actual people, whose actions and characteristics are known to

4545-614: The city. Anglo-American officials initially made attempts to keep out the additional Creoles of color , but the Louisiana Creoles wanted to increase the Creole population: more than half of the refugees eventually settled in Louisiana, and the majority remained in New Orleans . Pierre Clément de Laussat ( Governor , 1803) said: "Saint-Domingue was, of all our colonies in the Antilles,

4646-461: The crassness at the heart of the Trump regime and gleefully pays it back in its own coin". For IndieWire , David Ehrlich gave the film a grade of "B+" and wrote that it is "far more frightening than it is funny", and "packages such weighty and ultra-relevant subjects into the form of a wildly uneven but consistently entertaining night at the movies". A. O. Scott , writing for The New York Times , saw

4747-951: The culture, the Atchafalaya Basin Mounds in St. Mary Parish, the Fitzhugh Mounds in Madison Parish, the Scott Place Mounds in Union Parish, and the Sims site in St. Charles Parish. Plaquemine culture was contemporaneous with the Middle Mississippian culture that is represented by its largest settlement, the Cahokia site in Illinois east of St. Louis, Missouri . At its peak Cahokia

4848-436: The desired New Orleans area), and that approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire Louisiana territory of 828,000 square miles (2,100,000 km ) for sixty million Francs (approximately $ 15   million). Part of this sum, $ 3.5   million, was used to forgive debts owed by France to

4949-439: The device at Dumas's house, leaving it under her car when it will not fit into the mailbox. Stallworth tackles her as she tries to flee, but uniformed officers detain and beat him despite his protests that he is working undercover. The bombmaker, Walker, had recognized Zimmerman from a prior arrest and informed Felix at the Klan reception. He, Felix, and Ivanhoe drive to Dumas's house and park next to her car without realizing that

5050-459: The device is hidden underneath. When they detonate it, the explosion kills all three. Zimmerman arrives, frees Stallworth, and arrests Connie. While Stallworth is celebrating the closed case that night with Patrice, Landers arrives and drunkenly harasses the two, remorselessly admitting to his assault on Patrice. Stallworth reveals he is wearing a wire, and Police Chief Bridges arrives and arrests Landers for police brutality . Bridges congratulates

5151-435: The film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 85% positive score and a 67% "definite recommend". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five stars, writing: "It's an entertaining spectacle but the brilliant tonal balance in something like Jordan Peele's satire Get Out leaves this looking a little exposed. Yet it responds fiercely, contemptuously to

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5252-444: The film as both political and provocative in opening up discussion on timely subject matter following Charlottesville. He stated, "Committed anti-racists can sit quietly or laugh politely when hateful things are said. Epithets uttered in irony can be repeated in earnest. The most shocking thing about Flip's (Adam Driver's undercover detective role) imposture is how easy it seems, how natural he looks and sounds. This unnerving authenticity

5353-426: The film for its political perspective. While Riley called the craft of the film "masterful" and cited Lee as a major influence on his own work, he felt that the film was dishonestly marketed as a true story and criticized its attempts to "make a cop the protagonist in the fight against racist oppression", when Black Americans face structural racism "from the police on a day-to-day basis". In particular, Riley alleged that

5454-513: The film glossed over Stallworth's time spent working for COINTELPRO to "sabotage a Black radical organization" and objected to the film's choices to portray Stallworth's partner as Jewish and to fictionalize a bombing "to make the police seem like heroes". Lee responded in an interview with The Times on August 24, stating that while his films "have been very critical of the police ... I'm never going to say that all police are corrupt, that all police hate people of color." BlacKkKlansman won

5555-470: The film has an approval rating of 96% based on 450 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, " BlacKkKlansman uses history to offer bitingly trenchant commentary on current events—and brings out some of Spike Lee's hardest-hitting work in decades along the way." On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave

5656-512: The film rights to the book in 2015. Lee signed on as director in September 2017. Much of the cast joined the following month, and filming began in New York State . BlacKkKlansman premiered on May 14, 2018, at the Cannes Film Festival , where it won the Grand Prix . It was theatrically released in the United States on August 10, 2018, a day before the first anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia . The film received critical acclaim, with praise for Lee's direction,

5757-497: The first platform mounds at ritual centers were constructed for the developing hereditary political and religious leadership. By 400 the Late Woodland period had begun with the Baytown culture , Troyville culture , and Coastal Troyville during the Baytown period and were succeeded by the Coles Creek cultures . Where the Baytown peoples built dispersed settlements, the Troyville people instead continued building major earthwork centers. Population increased dramatically and there

5858-399: The first people in the area of Louisiana to make large amounts of pottery. These cultures lasted until 200 AD. The Middle Woodland period started in Louisiana with the Marksville culture in the southern and eastern part of the state, reaching across the Mississippi River to the east around Natchez, and the Fourche Maline culture in the northwestern part of the state. The Marksville culture

5959-480: The first two African slaves to Louisiana in 1708, transporting them from a French colony in the West Indies. In 1709, French financier Antoine Crozat obtained a monopoly of commerce in La Louisiane , which extended from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now Illinois . According to historian Hugh Thomas , "that concession allowed him to bring in a cargo of blacks from Africa every year". Starting in 1719, traders began to import slaves in higher numbers; two French ships,

6060-463: The gender norms that underlie the biopic in his article, "Taking Hollywood Back" in the 2009 issue of Cinema Journal . Roger Ebert defended The Hurricane and distortions in biographical films in general, stating "those who seek the truth about a man from the film of his life might as well seek it from his loving grandmother. ... The Hurricane is not a documentary but a parable ." Casting can be controversial for biographical films. Casting

6161-427: The genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era , and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck . On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a similar trajectory as that shown by Rick Altman in his study, Film/Genre . Bingham also addresses

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6262-474: The influence of New England Federalists in national affairs. President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty. Despite Federalist objections, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana treaty on October 20, 1803. By statute enacted on October 31, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson was authorized to take possession of the territories ceded by France and provide for initial governance. A transfer ceremony

6363-425: The interaction of whites (blancs) and blacks (noirs) in its colony of Louisiana (which was much larger than the current state of Louisiana). After the Sale of Louisiana , French Law survived in the Louisiana, such as the prohibition and outlaw of any cruel punishment. Fugitive slaves, called maroons , could easily hide in the backcountry of the bayous and survive in small settlements. The word "maroon" comes from

6464-460: The islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe to the French. Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement. In October 1801 he sent a large military force to take back Saint-Domingue, then under control of Toussaint Louverture after the Haitian Revolution . When the army led by Napoleon's brother-in-law Leclerc was defeated, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson , third president of

6565-419: The male biopic and the female biopic as distinct genres from each other, the former generally dealing with great accomplishments, the latter generally dealing with female victimization. Ellen Cheshire's Bio-Pics: a life in pictures (2014) examines UK/US films from the 1990s and 2000s. Each chapter reviews key films linked by profession and concludes with further viewing list. Christopher Robé has also written on

6666-430: The modern state of Louisiana. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas via the Old San Antonio Road, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river that were worked by imported African slaves. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in

6767-434: The newspaper, he calls posing as a white man. He speaks with Walter Breachway, the president of the Colorado Springs chapter, but soon realizes that not only did he use his real name, but he must also meet the Klan members. Stallworth recruits his Jewish coworker, Flip Zimmerman, to impersonate him and meet the KKK members while he continues posing as white on the phone. Under Stallworth's identity, Zimmerman meets Breachway,

6868-410: The northern and eastern bounds of his domain as the Wabash valley up to the mouth of the Vermilion River (near present-day Danville, Illinois ); from there, northwest to le Rocher on the Illinois River , and from there west to the mouth of the Rock River (at present day Rock Island, Illinois ). Thus, Vincennes and Peoria were the limit of Louisiana's reach; the outposts at Ouiatenon (on

6969-400: The occasion in suits and dresses to honor Belafonte. Lee ends the film with a tribute to anti-fascist counter-protester Heather Heyer , who was killed on August 12, 2017, in the Charlottesville car attack during the Unite the Right rally . On April 12, 2018, the film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival , where it premiered on May 14. It opened in

7070-442: The oldest settlement of Asians in the United States in the village of Saint Malo, Louisiana , the inhabitants of which, even joined the United States in the War of 1812 against the British Empire while they were being led by the French-American Jean Lafitte . Spanish occupation of Louisiana lasted from 1769 to 1800. Beginning in the 1790s, waves of immigration took place from Saint-Domingue as refugees poured over following

7171-441: The one whose mentality and customs influenced Louisiana the most." When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River. As American settlers pushed west, they found that the Appalachian Mountains provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward. The easiest way to ship produce

7272-559: The pamphleteer Thomas Paine to enforce existing federal law against slavery in the newly acquired territory, slavery prevailed because it was the source of great profits and the lowest-cost labor. At the start of the 19th century, Louisiana was a small producer of sugar with a relatively small number of slaves, compared to Saint-Domingue and the West Indies. It soon thereafter became a major sugar producer as new settlers arrived to develop plantations. William C. C. Claiborne , Louisiana's first United States governor, said African slave labor

7373-576: The peoples adopted extensive maize agriculture, cultivating different strains of the plant by saving seeds, selecting for certain characteristics, etc. The Plaquemine culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana began in 1200 and continued to about 1600. Examples in Louisiana include the Medora site , the archaeological type site for the culture in West Baton Rouge Parish whose characteristics helped define

7474-451: The performances (particularly of Washington, Driver and Grace), and timely themes. Critics noted it as a return to form for Lee. It received six nominations at the 91st Academy Awards , including Best Picture , Best Director (Lee's first directing nomination), and Best Supporting Actor for Driver; and won for Best Adapted Screenplay , making it Lee's first competitive Academy Award. The American Film Institute also selected it as one of

7575-585: The pressure for Anglicization , and in 1921, English was shortly made the sole language of instruction in Louisiana schools before a policy of multilingualism was revived in 1974. Louisiana has never had an official language, and the state constitution enumerates "the right of the people to preserve, foster, and promote their respective historic, linguistic, and cultural origins." Based on national averages, Louisiana frequently ranks low among U.S. states in terms of health, education, and development, with high rates of poverty and homicide . In 2018, Louisiana

7676-483: The project. In September of that year, Spike Lee signed on as director and John David Washington was in negotiations to star. The following month, Adam Driver , Laura Harrier , Topher Grace , and Corey Hawkins had joined the cast. In November, Paul Walter Hauser , Jasper Pääkkönen , and Ryan Eggold joined the cast, with Ashlie Atkinson joining a month later. Filming began in October 2017. Ossining, New York ,

7777-803: The public (or at least historically documented), biopic roles are considered some of the most demanding of actors and actresses. Warren Beatty , Faye Dunaway , Ben Kingsley , Johnny Depp , Jim Carrey , Jamie Foxx , Robert Downey Jr. , Brad Pitt , Emma Thompson , Tom Hanks , Eddie Redmayne , and Cillian Murphy all gained new-found respect as dramatic actors after starring in biopics: Beatty and Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi (1982), Depp as Ed Wood in Ed Wood (1994), Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on

7878-584: The racist viewpoint in the past, such as Griffith's The Birth of a Nation . Edelstein stated: "Lee himself has a propagandist streak, and he knows nothing ever sold the message of white emasculation and the existential necessity of keeping blacks down as well as Griffith's 1915 film. It revived the Klan and—insult to injury—is still reckoned a landmark of narrative filmmaking . If there were no other reason to make BlackkKlansman , this one would be good enough." Filmmaker Boots Riley , whose feature film debut Sorry to Bother You also premiered in 2018, criticized

7979-447: The rest of the southern U.S., Louisiana is multilingual and multicultural, reflecting an admixture of Louisiana French ( Cajun , Creole ), Spanish , French Canadian , Acadian , Saint-Domingue Creole , Native American , and West African cultures (generally the descendants of slaves stolen in the 18th century); more recent migrants include Filipinos and Vietnamese. In the post–Civil War environment , Anglo-Americans increased

8080-429: The river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $ 2   million. An official transfer of Louisiana to French ownership had not yet taken place, and Napoleon's deal with the Spanish was a poorly kept secret on the frontier. On October 18, 1802, however, Juan Ventura Morales, acting intendant of Louisiana, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from

8181-550: The river would be delayed until later in the decade. In 1765, during Spanish rule, several thousand Acadians from the French colony of Acadia (now Nova Scotia , New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island ) made their way to Louisiana after having been expelled from Acadia by the British government after the French and Indian War. They settled chiefly in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana . The governor Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga , eager to gain more settlers, welcomed

8282-549: The size of the country. Jefferson's political opponents in the Federalist Party argued the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert, and that the U.S. constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the federal legislature. What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening western and southern interests in U.S. Congress , and further reducing

8383-517: The slightly more reckless and unstable Felix Kendrickson (and later his wife Connie), and Ivanhoe, who cryptically refers to an upcoming terrorist attack. Calling Ku Klux Klan headquarters in Louisiana to expedite his membership, Stallworth begins regular phone conversations with Grand Wizard David Duke . Kendrickson suspects Zimmerman of being Jewish and tries to force him to take a polygraph test at gunpoint, but Stallworth, overhearing everything on

8484-472: The state is forested. Louisiana is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi river system and the Gulf of Mexico. Its location and biodiversity attracted various indigenous groups thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the 17th century. Louisiana has eighteen Native American tribes—the most of any southern state—of which four are federally recognized and ten are state-recognized. The French claimed

8585-551: The state. The city of modern–day Epps developed near it. The Poverty Point culture may have reached its peak around 1500 BC, making it the first complex culture, and possibly the first tribal culture in North America. It lasted until approximately 700 BC. The Poverty Point culture was followed by the Tchefuncte and Lake Cormorant cultures of the Tchula period , local manifestations of Early Woodland period . The Tchefuncte culture were

8686-428: The team for their success but orders them to end their investigation and destroy the records. Stallworth receives a call from Duke, and he insultingly tells Duke he is black before hanging up. Later while Dumas and Stallworth discuss their future, they are interrupted by a knock on the door. Through the window in the hallway, they see a flaming cross on a hillside surrounded by KKK members. The film cuts to footage of

8787-477: The territory in 1682, and it became the political, commercial, and population center of the larger colony of New France . From 1762 to 1801 Louisiana was under Spanish rule, briefly returning to French rule before being sold by Napoleon to the U.S. in 1803. It was admitted to the Union in 1812 as the 18th state. Following statehood, Louisiana saw an influx of settlers from the eastern U.S. as well as immigrants from

8888-474: The truth. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was based on game show host Chuck Barris ' widely debunked yet popular memoir of the same name, in which he claimed to be a CIA agent. Kafka incorporated both the life of author Franz Kafka and the surreal aspects of his fiction. The Errol Flynn film They Died with Their Boots On tells the story of Custer but is highly romanticized. The Oliver Stone film The Doors , mainly about Jim Morrison ,

8989-451: The upper Wabash near present-day Lafayette, Indiana ), Chicago, Fort Miamis (near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana ), and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin , operated as dependencies of Canada. The settlement of Natchitoches (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis , making it the oldest permanent European settlement in

9090-590: Was also nominated for Best Film Editing and composer Terence Blanchard was nominated for Best Original Score . Although based on a true story, the film dramatizes several events: Biographical film Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis . Custen, in Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History (1992), regards

9191-477: Was built about 5400 BP (3500 BC). These discoveries overturned previous assumptions in archaeology that such complex mounds were built only by cultures of more settled peoples who were dependent on maize cultivation. The Hedgepeth Site in Lincoln Parish is more recent, dated to 5200–4500 BP (3300–2600 BC). Nearly 2,000 years later, Poverty Point was built; it is the largest and best-known Late Archaic site in

9292-403: Was founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville , a French military officer from New France . By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named La Balise (or La Balize) , " seamark " in French. By 1721, they built a 62-foot (19 m) wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river. A royal ordinance of 1722—following

9393-422: Was held in New Orleans on November 29, 1803. Since the Louisiana territory had never officially been turned over to the French, the Spanish took down their flag, and the French raised theirs. The following day, General James Wilkinson accepted possession of New Orleans for the United States. The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than three cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States overnight, without

9494-1056: Was highly praised for the similarities between Jim Morrison and actor Val Kilmer , look-wise and singing-wise, but fans and band members did not like the way Val Kilmer portrayed Jim Morrison, and a few of the scenes were even completely made up. In rare cases, sometimes called auto biopics , the subject of the film plays themself. Examples include Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Muhammad Ali in The Greatest (1977), Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back (1955), Patty Duke in Call Me Anna (1990), Bob Mathias in The Bob Mathias Story (1954), Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant (1969), Fantasia in Life Is Not

9595-652: Was named after the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Site in Avoyelles Parish . These cultures were contemporaneous with the Hopewell cultures of present-day Ohio and Illinois , and participated in the Hopewell Exchange Network. Trade with peoples to the southwest brought the bow and arrow . The first burial mounds were built at this time. Political power began to be consolidated, as

9696-553: Was needed because white laborers "cannot be had in this unhealthy climate." Hugh Thomas wrote that Claiborne was unable to enforce the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, which the U.S. and Great Britain enacted in 1807. The United States continued to protect the domestic slave trade, including the coastwise trade—the transport of slaves by ship along the Atlantic Coast and to New Orleans and other Gulf ports. By 1840, New Orleans had

9797-554: Was one location used in October. Filming locations also included the Rockland County hamlet of Garnerville , New York, where exterior shots of one of the Colorado Springs police stations were filmed. Harry Belafonte appears in the film in a cameo (and in his final film role) as an activist recounting the lynching of Jesse Washington ; according to Lee, he commanded his crew on the day of filming Belafonte's scene to dress for

9898-471: Was projected to gross around $ 10 million from 1,512 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $ 3.6 million on its first day (including $ 670,000 from Thursday night previews). It went on to debut to $ 10.8 million, finishing fifth at the box office and marking Lee's best opening weekend since Inside Man ($ 29 million) in 2006. It made $ 7.4 million in its second weekend and $ 5.3 million in its third, finishing seventh and eighth, respectively. On Rotten Tomatoes ,

9999-437: Was ranked as the least healthy state in the country, with high levels of drug-related deaths . It also has had the highest homicide rate in the United States since at least the 1990s. Louisiana was named after Louis XIV , King of France from 1643 to 1715. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane . The suffix –ana (or –ane)

10100-457: Was settled by French colonists from Illinois. Initially, Mobile and then Biloxi served as the capital of La Louisiane. Recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, and wanting to protect the capital from severe coastal storms, France developed New Orleans from 1722 as the seat of civilian and military authority south of the Great Lakes. From then until

10201-549: Was to use a flatboat to float it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the port of New Orleans, where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels. The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below Natchez . Napoleon's ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the Caribbean sugar trade . By the terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, Great Britain returned control of

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