Edward Norton
Total Film, April 1999
"You watch the son get twisted by a loving father impulse. That's more
disturbing than somebody yelling 'Nigger!'"
From playing the scrawny lawyer of a wheelchair-bound porn Jabba in The People
Vs Larry Flynt, to a muscular skinhead in American History X, the change in
Edward Norton's physicality is at once obvious. He shrugs it off: as if anyone can get
so big that quickly. "It took about two-and-a-half months and I gained about 30lbs
eating meatshakes: blended roast beef," he states simply. "I just ate a lot and lifted
weights a boring amount, and the minute it was over it was like someone let the air out
of a balloon. I went right back down to my skinny little self."
American History X is the troubled directorial debut from renowned British
commercials-director Tony Kaye. It tells how Norton's character Derek Vinyard tries to
save his younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from the thrall of the local neo-Nazis.
Kaye took so long editing the finished product that the studio eventually released it
regardless, prompting Kaye to insist that his name be taken off the credits to be replaced
with Humpty Dumpty. You know, to symbolise his 'fallen' status.
Norton is dismissive of this curious behaviour. "Tony's frustrations are with running
up against the practical parameters of commercial film-making, which I think he has a
little bit of an immature grip on. I think he doesn't want to face up to the fact that
this isn't an ad infinitum process. Coppola once said: 'No films ever get finished, they
get abandoned.' Besides, it's completely his cut of the film; any representation of it as
anything else is hogwash. This chasm that he's talking about, it's a misrepresentation."
Through flashbacks, Derek's return from racism and Danny's journey into it are charted
in a story that's provoked controversy because it refuses to portray neo-Nazis as
one-dimensionally evil.
"That was very much the challenge that appealed to me about it," Norton says. "I like
that. At the end of the day, you can't even say: 'Okay, well the father was a racist shit.'
Because he's not. Clearly he's a decent person with a lot of loving impulses for his
family, whose personal frustrations have pushed him into a bigoted, negative worldview.
It's awful, because you watch him twist his son, not out of some aggressive, ugly American
racism, but out of a loving father impulse. That's 10 times more disturbing than somebody
pounding his fist and yelling: 'Nigger!'"
The film's moral ambiguities run much deeper than all the sympathetic characters being
skinheads. In a film dominated by racism, much of the violence is committed by blacks on
mostly innocent white victims. A muddle of morals?
Norton hopes the movie will have a positive effect on its audience. "Tony and I used to
talk about this, and the best-case scenario is a skinhead kid who comes in, takes one look
at this kid in the first scene and goes: 'Hell, yeah, that's who I wanna be.' But by the
end of the film he's been trapped, and forced to contend with the impact of this
character's emotional journey."
Marion Ross
American History X is out on 26 March 1999 (UK release date)
If you have new information on Edward Norton (and you can provide a
verifiable and reputable source), please email me-
Susan
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