‘One Night in Miami’ | Anatomy of a Scene

”Hi, I‘m Regina King. And I‘m the director of One Night in Miami. So this is in the film where we‘ve just seen our quartet, Malcolm, Jim, Sam and Cassius, come down off of the roof where they went to kind of get a breather. It really kicks off the beginning of the debate that we‘re going to see between Malcolm and Sam.” ”You know what is going on around us, it should make everyone angry. Well, you know, you bourgeois Negroes you‘re too happy with your scraps to really understand what is at stake here.” ”Malcolm is really in this space feeling urgent, that where we are as a people, we don‘t have time to joke around or take life lightly. And he feels that Sam has not been using his voice the way he should be. They all have strong voices. But Sam has the furthest reach.” ”And that is why, brother Sam, this movement that we are in is called a struggle. Because we are fighting for our lives.” ”My goal in this moment was to set up how we can debate passionately and disagree. But while we can come to heads like that, it still comes from a place of love. This film is not told through one person‘s perspective. It‘s the fly on the wall‘s perspective. And as Malcolm is throwing jabs, Sam throws jabs. And we just kind of jump from different perspectives as the audience member, as each one of them makes a really valid point. And this is the setup for all of those points.” ”Wow, Sam, your music is deep brother.” ”Hey man, I love them songs.” ”You have lots of conversations just reminding Leslie in moments of, that, while Sam and Malcolm are having this debate that he does have great respect for Malcolm. And to hear these words coming from Malcolm that kind of mirror maybe some thoughts he may have had himself is a bit of a blow. And it‘s what you play in the silent moments when you‘re not talking that‘s as equally important as when you actually have dialogue.”