American History X is a great movie. It’s hard to watch, but it’s cemented itself in cinema history, with a solid story and at least one iconic scene. However, the movie was one of those ‘production hell’ movies, with major issues between the director, actor and studio.
American History X was directed by Tony Kaye, and starred Ed Norton. Norton was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.
However, Kane was always opposed to the movie’s release in 1998. He claimed that New Line and Norton had cut the movie far from his version. It was not the version of American History X that he had made.
It got to a point where Kaye wanted to pull an Alan Smithee, by changing his name to Humpty Dumpty and putting that on the end of the movie. This was denied by the DGA. After that, Kaye tried to sue New Line for over $200 million, only to have the case finally dismissed.
Back in 1998, just before the release of American History X, Kaye was filming all of his encounters with the people involved. This was long before the days of mobile phones recording everything.
Kaye eventually put all of the footage together into a documentary, Humpty Dumpty X, which was just premiered at a film festival. Here is the trailer.
Kaye’s dream was to work with Marlon Brando, and it seems Brando features a lot in this new documentary.
The new docu, Humpty Dumpty X, will be released in July, I think. I’d be interested to see it.
