Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’ve also had a chance to see this, but once again the nimble and quick-witted Mr. Beaks has beaten me to the punch. Like with HELL HOUSE, he’s done a bang-up of pinning down the appeal of this documentary, and, in this case, the importance.
And remember... you should see Nick Broomfield’s film to balance out the recent LOS ANGELES TIMES piece, and you should see where you stand on what’s true and what’s not afterwards. I’ll say this much... in this case, I think Broomfield is the real reporter, the one who did the legwork and connected the dots and got to the heart of the thing. That’s just my opinion, of course, and I’ll go into it more when I finish my review. For now, here’s my favorite movie reviewer in LA, Mr. Beaks...
BIGGIE & TUPAC (d. Nick Broomfield)
The March 1997 slaying of Biggie Smalls brought a violent end to hip-hop’s silly East Coast/West Coast rivalry; a tragically stupid chapter in music history that was tolerable so long as the battle was being conducted through the grand tradition of battle raps and call-outs on industry award shows. Death threats and charges of balling a rival’s wife made for some guiltily entertaining music (so long as the beats were up to par), but when the need for gangsta legitimacy attracted a real-life monster, the once-cartoonish conflict got well out of hand.
Suge Knight was to Tupac what Frank Costello was to Frank Sinatra: a thuggish facilitator whose aggressive bargaining tactics helpfully struck the fear of god into anyone unlucky enough to find themselves across the table from them. A convicted criminal turned music impresario when recruited to “negotiate” Dr. Dre’s freedom from Eazy-E and Jerry Heller’s Ruthless Records (legend has it that the talks involved everything from baseball bats to Glocks), Suge was the living, breathing embodiment of every gangsta rappers’ most lurid fantasy; his entrée into this world would proving less a lucrative boon than a Faustian contract with potentially fatal consequences. The warning was explicit: woe be unto the artist who sought to sever ties with him.
According to bulldog documentarian Nick Broomfield, ‘twas such a decision that set in motion the diabolical machinations that left two of the music’s top artists bullet-ridden cautionary tales. Following up his surreal KURT & COURTNEY, Broomfield has again taken up his boom mike in search of the truth in an industry with little use for it, and the results are equal parts absurd, heartbreaking and frightening, for stalking Suge Knight is a far more hazardous proposition than annoying Courtney Love. Broomfield’s theory is that Knight had Tupac killed, knowing that the rapper was soon to bolt Death Row due to royalty issues, and covered his tracks by having Notorious B.I.G. slain six months later, figuring the media and the police would chalk it all up to the bi-coastal feud. While far from a novel presumption, Nick is the first notable reporter of any stripe to aggressively pursue it. What he ends up with is the most coherent film of his career; a frustrating indictment of a notoriously corrupt police department kowtowing to a self-styled criminal kingpin as he orchestrates the cold-blooded murder of two young, if misguided, emcees who certainly never meant to take their posturing this far.
For anyone unfamiliar with Broomfield’s tactics, BIGGIE & TUPAC may seem off-putting at first. After some lengthy, possibly unnecessary exposition detailing the roots of the Death Row/Bad Boy animosity, Nick goes on the prowl, seeking first an audience with the stymied investigation’s sole trump card, Russell Poole, a former LAPD Detective and model officer who resigned from the force when his superiors halted him from investigating further a number of fellow cops on the take from Death Row, some of whom were possibly connected to the homicides of Biggie and Tupac. When stymied in his earliest attempts to talk to Poole, it’s a typical Broomfield comedy of ineptitude; as always, the filmmaker keeps the camera and sound rolling as he tries to bully uncooperative subjects for favors and information, all to no avail. Even those willing to talk seem to clam up reflexively once they see Nick coming; there’s something about his aggressive method of interviewing that seemingly strikes the interviewee as untoward and maybe just a tad dishonest.
What’s fascinating, though, is how a number of his subjects acclimate themselves to Nick’s technique and slowly begin to trust their odd inquisitor. In particular, Valetta Wallace gracefully overcomes her extreme unease readily apparent in her first interviews to become a convincing and moving crusader for the truth behind her son’s slaying. What’s most striking about Ms. Wallace’s recollections is how she purposefully avoids hagiography when discussing her son; Biggie (or Christopher), while responsible for her spaciously elegant house and wealth, caused for her as much pain and frustration as pride, a revelation which should come as little surprise to those familiar with his bawdy, violent lyrics. At one point, she indignantly disputes his claims of childhood destitution – famously depicted on his first hit “Juicy” – according to Valetta, tales of going without meals and selling drugs to put food on the family’s table are pure fantasy (some of these yarns are further debunked when Broomfield hits Biggie’s Brooklyn stomping grounds).
It’s this level of trust that allows Broomfield his most astonishing investigatorial coups. Along the way, he elicits from one disgraced ex-LAPD officer an admission that countless cops were on the Death Row payroll at the time of both killings (key to Poole’s contention that only cops could cover up both murders so tidily). He also visits Biggie’s former bodyguard, who startlingly identifies his deceased employer’s alleged murderer from a mug shot previously withheld from him. But the most transfixing revelation comes from a nervous, Tourette’s-addled convict who discloses that he delivered the payment from Suge Knight to off-duty LAPD officers who carried out the slayings. As the man stammers through his story, fighting back guilt-tinged tears, one wonders why he’d insert himself into such potentially dire circumstances if he’s not telling the truth.
Looming over all of these players is the intimidating shadow of Suge Knight, and near the film’s end, Broomfield unexpectedly gains an audience with the then-incarcerated recording magnate. More illuminating than the interview itself are the lengths to which Broomfield must go to secure it; after wandering around the general population with only the warden at his side (and a new cameraman, after his usual partner dropped out due to self-preservation) the gonzo director finally spots his prey on a pay phone. In what is easily one of the most intense moments in any movie this year, Broomfield stands back maybe fifty feet from Knight and asks the warden whether he should simply approach the prisoner. Not wanting to take any chances, the warden, exhibiting the same palpable terror as everyone else in the film, asks Nick to wait while he clears the interview with Suge himself. Not willing to lose what could certainly be the crown jewel of his film, Broomfield waits for the warden to engage Suge and, then, ambushes them. The warden’s mortified reaction is the ultimate validation of Knight’s fearsome rep, saying more than Broomfield’s eventual interview with the man ever could.
What impresses most about Broomfield’s achievement with BIGGIE & TUPAC is his fearless quest to simply investigate a theory too many journalists and detectives have avoided due to a supposed fear of retribution from the accused. This kind of softball reportage was recently evinced in a widely-discussed two part article by Chuck Phillips of the Los Angeles Times (“Who Killed Tupac Shakur?”). Though some of Phillips’s findings are absolutely worth considering (e.g. the reticence of the Las Vegas Police Department to follow up leads with obvious relevance to the murder), his piece is too easily discredited by floating another sensational theory – Phillips contends that Biggie Smalls paid for the Tupac hit – while backing it up with unsubstantiated, off-the-record sources (effectively countered here). There’s no reason to doubt Phillips interviewed countless gang members and police officers for his piece, but his speculation rings hollow without names and faces, both of which are supplied by Broomfield throughout his documentary. Upon finishing Phillips piece, in which Suge Knight figures in as, at best, a secondary figure, it’s hard not to imagine the writer buckling under the same fear displayed by everyone else in Broomfield’s film.
As with most of the filmmaker’s previous work, Broomfield goes to great lengths to depict himself as a crusading, truth-obsessed David up against a far more powerful, possibly insidious Goliath, but what sets BIGGIE & TUPAC apart is the surprising humanity, most of which is provided courtesy of Valetta Wallace, whom the director wisely grants the final word. No matter how calculated, the gambit pays off beautifully, enabling the viewer to gain a sense of the pointless loss at the center of this investigation. Two bright, talented young men allowed fame to cloud their judgment, mistaking role playing with an actual involvement in the criminal affairs of real life gangsters. Most likely, their murders may never be solved, but for all his muckraking, Broomfield has done younger generations a service by largely framing their misfortune as a cautionary tale. And for anyone who ever watched “California Love” blow the roof off a party, or felt like the world’s biggest mack as the ladies swayed to “Big Poppa”, it’s hard not to shed a tear pondering such utter senselessness.
Faithfully submitted,
