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Biggie and Tupac
review by
Cynthia Fuchs,
2 May 2003
Breaking the
cycle
Nick
Broomfield's Biggie & Tupac, now available on DVD from Razor
& Tie, opens on a famous photo of the Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur
-- together. Each appears to be trying to out-thug-pose the other:
B.I.G. stands with his head tilted to the side, his black headrag
pulled low over his large eyes, as Tupac Shakur, equally artful,
throws his hands up, both offering a "f*ck you" to the camera,
representing the way he used to do.
As the camera
passes over this image -- so frozen in time and now, after all the
violence and grief, so sad -- Broomfield's voiceover explains the
occasion for his film. Tupac was shot to death in a car in Vegas on
7 September 1996, and Biggie was murdered just six months later,
outside a party in L.A. He wonders aloud how these two one-time
friends came to an apparently fatal enmity. But this introduction to
the vagaries of hiphop industry competitions is only a hook.
Broomfield's film is less interested in Biggie and Tupac per se than
in the simultaneously extraordinary and mundane circumstances
surrounding their deaths, in particular, the frustratingly
go-nowhere "official" investigations.
Biggie &
Tupac
picks up arguments made elsewhere, by others, including ex-LAPD
officer Russell Poole (who claims his investigation was thwarted by
superiors) and Randall Sullivan, author of LAbyrinth, that
the murders resulted from a combination of gang and cop vengeance
plots and have since been covered up by a variety of conspiracies.
(It also argues against Chuck Phillips' suggestion, in the Los
Angeles Times in 2002, that Biggie paid to have Tupac killed and
was in Vegas at the time of the shooting.)
Versions of the
corrupt L.A. cops story have been told before, in a 2000 article in
the New York Times Magazine (Lou Cannon's "L.A.P.D.
Confidential"), as well as 2001 articles in Rolling Stone
(Sullivan's "The Murder of the Notorious B.I.G.," 8 June) and The
New Yorker (Peter Boyer's "Bad Cops," 21 May), as well as a
Frontline documentary about L.A.P.D. corruption that same year.
Essentially, Broomfield, with Poole's on-camera help, makes
connections among several L.A.P.D. officers (Rafael Perez, David
Mack, and the late Kevin Gaines among them), the Rampart scandals,
and the Biggie and Tupac murders.
Broomfield
comes at this morass of egos and exploits as he comes at all of his
filmic subjects, as an outsider looking for "answers." In this role,
he's earnest and dogged, outwardly naïve and even stammering on
occasion, but always wryly commenting and asking aloud the questions
that might occur to anyone without a background (and some with a
background) in the particulars and personalities. Much like his
previous films -- for instance, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a
Serial Killer (1992), Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam
(1995), Kurt & Courtney (1998) -- this one pushes at the
limits of traditional documentary. Broomfield presents himself as a
pseudo-valiant, persistent pursuer of "truth," liking especially to
look for it in places where others have not, and implicitly acceding
that everyone has his or her own truth to tell.
This is
Broomfield's great insight, worth repeating in all his films: truth
is messy and unstable, truth is self-serving (even if that self
might be, on occasion, Broomfield), and truth is produced by the
beholder's interests and investments. Broomfield's films don't
feature much objectivity. Rather, they give the concept a good
going-over, so that, by the end of each, you're likely to be less
sure of your own reading abilities than you were at the beginning.
This can be a
very good thing. Biggie & Tupac is best when it's not making
assertions (most of which are not new), and is instead challenging
the very idea of making assertions. As Broomfield notes on the
commentary track, his "interview method" can seem transparent: he
like to repeat a last word spoken by a subject, as this may help the
subject to build on an idea. He "enjoys" his interviews, treats them
as "conversations" more than examinations or quests. The film is
about process, exposed as equally ludicrous, methodical, accidental,
and/or fortuitous. As an investigation of investigations, the film
is a little meta, but that only makes it more compelling, more
knotted, more galvanizing.
Tracking people
who may have known Biggie when he was rhyming on the sidewalk
outside a Brooklyn barbershop, Broomfield sticks his mike in
someone's face, and she hides: "He de bomb," she says, but "I don't
want to be on TV." Then Broomfield trundles off to visit Tupac's
former bodyguard, Frank Alexander, recently born again and living
with several Rottweilers, still fearful even after writing an
autobiography. When Broomfield asks Alexander about his assertion,
in the book, that "words circulated" concerning Suge's part in Pac's
murder, he hems and haws, underlining that these are not his words,
but someone else's that "circulated." Or again, Broomfield goes to
see one "witness" to LAPD planning and shenanigans, a guy named Mark
Hyland, "the Bookkeeper," suffering from Tourette's Syndrome and
depression (he's also in jail on thirty-seven counts of
impersonating a lawyer). He literally cries while recalling his
money-moving schemes.
The DVD
includes a couple of "Failed Interviews," one that Broomfield
introduces: "This is us being chucked out of a private housing
estate in New Jersey," where they had gone to interview Damien
Butler, a witness to Biggie's murder who was now "frightened one way
or the other." As Broomfield describes it, the moment is "one of
those humiliating experiences that one goes through when making one
of these kinds of films, so we thought we'd put it in." The second
shows the Last Resort bar in the heart of the Rampart area, where
Mackie and other cops would "hang out." Broomfield's questions to
the bartender are summarily rebuffed. As well, the DVD features some
rough, in-the-studio music tracks by Tupac's stepbrother Mopreme,
whose interview with Broomfield is particularly poignant, the
Outlawz (Tupac's backing band), footage of Tupac in the studio, as
well as a rhyme by Biggie's associate Chico.
While these
extras helpfully illustrate problems and, to an extent, the excess
-- of feeling, care, and dedication that documentary-making entails,
for the most part, Biggie & Tupac's argument stems from the
filmmakers' plain affections for Voletta Wallace, Biggie's mother,
whom he calls a "former schoolteacher... who appeared in the video
for 'Juicy'" (at which point you see her in the video, as well as
her son's visible respect for her). She plays a role reminiscent of
Kurt Cobain's aunt in Kurt & Courtney: kind and sincere. Not
only is Miss Wallace charming and helpful in the filmmaking (when
Broomfield can't get an interview with Lil Cease, she has him sit
and wait at her home while she calls Cease, and gets him to come on
over right that minute), but she is also generous with her time and
fond memories of Biggie ("My son was a poet").
The same cannot
be said for Pac's mom, Afeni Shakur, whom Broomfield describes as a
"former Black Panther" (which everyone knows already, but somehow it
seems part of a legacy of "violence" here) and as keeping a tight
control on materials and still-to-be-released tracks. Afeni remains
affiliated with Suge Knight, as they continue to release Tupac's
work. And if she won't be interviewed, he, eventually, will.
To get access
to Suge, Broomfield must go through several intermediaries,
including the prison warden at Owl Creek, where Suge's serving time
(he's since been released). One of Suge's reps warns Broomfield not
to try to "use" Suge like he obviously used people to "elevate"
himself and make them look stupid. If Broomfield screws up, this guy
says, "Anybody who's black in the prison won't be speaking to you."
Articulating the race difference and fear that underlie the business
of gangsta rap as well as the supposedly ongoing investigations into
the murders, this threat also leads to a scene in the prison, where
the black and Latino inmates look askance at the camera as
Broomfield and crew make their way along the sidewalk.
Broomfield goes
on to make the sort of dry observations for which he is most well
known (and, not to put too fine a point on it, beloved). When his
usual cameraperson opts out of the trip to see Suge in prison, he
notes this is out of concern for "self-preservation." As well,
Broomfield observes that Suge only agrees to the interview after
some cogitation, and apparently, knows a little something about
Broomfield's work, insisting that there be "No slander and funny
stuff!" That Broomfield repeats the phrase, deadpan, is partly
hilarious and partly odd, though hardly as odd as the interview
itself.
On its surface,
this interview is uninformative, nearly goofy. Suge will only answer
one question, essentially, which is to explain his "message to the
kids." Seated on a bench in the yard, his bald head shiny with sweat
in the sun, big cigar in his mouth, he asserts his desires to help
the next generation, to warn them off of his own past: "Peace
positive for the kids," he says.
Suge is
positioned here as the film's big get. In most of Broomfield's
films, this sort of hard-to-arrange interview serves as a climax --
Aileen in her cell, Heidi in her dress shop, Courtney at the ACLU
Awards. Here, however, and for all his spectacular strangeness, Suge
is overshadowed at last by a return visit to Voletta. She cooks for
the crew, and then recalls a phone she once had with her son, where
he refused to get off -- for three hours -- until she forgave him
for something he had said or did (something she doesn't even
remember). The point is this desire for forgiveness, and the
generosity that Voletta not only embodies, but also recalls in her
son. She provides Biggie & Tupac with welcome grace and
warmth.
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