-I ran away when was I 12 years old.

I ain't never looked back.

-Well, what you doing since then?

-I run for president.

-[ Snorts ] I ain't win, though.

[ Laughter ] -This trivial line of dialogue provokes hilarity in these black men in the midst of a civil war.

20 years after this film and 150 years after this conflict, it takes on a whole new dimension.

-Ladies and gentlemen, the President-Elect of the United States and Mrs. Michelle Obama.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -In the meantime, the defiant slave of "Glory" has become one of Hollywood's most influential stars.

-Thank you.

We come here knowing that we are all in this together.

So, we name this ceremony that begins this inaugural week with three simple words that speak to who we are and to our future, and they are "We are one."

-Denzel Washington becomes the spokesman for American unity, yet he's built his career on scattered fragments of his country's history.

In 40 years of playing roles in which historical figures and ordinary destinies co-exist, he's established himself in Hollywood like no other black actor before him.

-[ Howls ] -But this success has put him on a razor's edge, one that obliges him to win over the white public while never losing the connection with the African American community, a high wire act in a country plagued with racism.

Film after film, Denzel Washington has placed the black man back at the heart of the national narrative and changed America's image of itself... ...an image in which the face of a black man can now be reflected.

[ Bell tolling ] While Shakespeare's hero Macbeth sits on a fragile throne, Denzel Washington is an undisputed prince of American cinema... [ Footsteps approaching ] ...a sphinx whose destiny embraces that of his country.

♪♪ 1954, the year of his birth, is a pivotal date for America.

♪♪ Revolt is brewing amongst the black youth, ready to break down the barriers of racial segregation.

It has its heroes... -We love America too much to slow up.

-...Martin Luther King in the Southern states, Malcolm X in the streets of New York.

-We want freedom by any means necessary.

-Denzel grows up in this America of opposites, torn between its thirst for equality and the deep-seated racism.

[ Gunshots, screaming ] He's barely out of childhood when the two great figures of the civil rights movement are assassinated, leaving the African American community orphaned.

He doesn't know it yet, but Denzel will one day take up their fight and irrevocably link his destiny to theirs.

For the time being, his family life is disrupted by his parents' divorce.

His days are no longer punctuated by the sermons of his father, a Pentecostal preacher, who moves out of their Mount Vernon home in the suburbs of New York.

[ Siren wailing ] A cutthroat neighborhood in the Bronx is just around the corner.

The teenager flirts with delinquency.

[ Siren wails ] His mother sends him away to a private boarding school on the other side of the state.

His new friends are more often white than black.

In his new environment, Denzel learns the codes of the dominant culture.

Because he's escaped the fate of so many young black men of his generation, the young Denzel won't allow himself to go off the rails.

His ethics will be hard work and willpower and an unshakable confidence in his lucky star.

-In college, I wanted to be a doctor first because -- I didn't know why, actually, because you go to college and you got to choose something.

So I said, "Alright, I'll be a doctor."

Moved into political science, thought about being a lawyer, started taking some communications classes, thought about being a journalist, and started taking some acting classes, just took one just to fill out my curriculum.

Liked it, took another, thought it was interesting.

They were doing a play.

Asked me to audition for it.

Turns out it was the lead in the play.

Got the part, did the play.

People said, "Hey, you can act."

I said, "Well, I know I'm not going to be a doctor."

♪♪ -For any novice actor in the 1970s, Broadway is almost a compulsory step, the dream within reach.

♪♪ Denzel Washington gets a taste of the rigors of the stage and performing without a safety net.

But it's the small screen that really launches his career.

America's story is now told via the TV set.

Sitcoms such as "The Cosby Show" feature an integrated African American middle class family with an exclusively black cast.

Denzel chooses a different niche.

-White's kid.

She ate some mothballs.

-In "St.

Elsewhere", a mainstream hospital drama series, he's Philip Chandler, a hardworking, deserving doctor to whom he bears a striking resemblance.

-...bronchogenic cancer.

Uneven margins with calcifications like a crab.

See here?

-Mm-hmm.

-Trabeculae invading the tissue?

I was studying pre-med in college, and now I'm playing a doctor.

-Yeah.

So at least you know a little bit about what you're talking about.

-Yeah.

No, I don't.

-You don't?

-No, actually, you know, I try to find out -- I have nurses dictionaries and medical dictionaries, and I try to know at least a general idea, if not specifically everything I'm talking about.

Everything that we say on the show is medically correct.

[ Cheers and applause ] -The 1980s are a time of opportunity for African Americans.

The struggles of the previous decades have paid off.

America is multiracial.

Black stars are now approved and promoted by the system.

The president sets himself up as a dream merchant, promising greatness for all.

-It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams.

Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.

[ Dog barking ] -But the African American heroes of the Reagan era are not representative.

They're a false reality.

The urban ghettos are exploding.

The left behind are legion, and they're often black.

This social reality resonates with Denzel Washington's first major film role.

-What's your name, Kaffir?

-It's there in the book.

-Say it!

Say your name!

-He embodies a figure of the South African black movement.

-Bantu Stephen Biko.

-His portrayal of the anti-apartheid activist earns him his first Oscar nomination.

-Have you ever spent any time in a black township?

-I've been to many.

-No, don't be embarrassed.

Except for the police, I don't think one white South African in 10,000 has.

You see, we know how you live.

We cut your lawns, we cook your food, clean your rubbish.

How would you like to see how we live, the 90% of your fellow countrymen who have to get off your white streets at 6:00 at night?

-More than just a role for the actor, the film shoot is a catalyst.

-You know, being an African American, we're one of the few groups of people on this earth that don't know where we're from specifically, you know, because our history was taken from us during slavery.

We know we're from the continent of Africa, but not specifically where.

So when I went to Zimbabwe, where we filmed, it was sort of a homecoming.

It felt like, "Yeah, this makes sense now.

You know, I'm back at home," even though it wasn't necessarily my block, but I still felt good about it.

[ Drums playing ] -Denzel Washington feels the need to explore the shadows of the past, this time in his own country.

In "Glory", he plays Trip, a seditious soldier during the American Civil War.

-Huh?

I mean, a colored soldier can stop a bullet just as good as a white one!

And for less money, too!

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Uncle Abe got himself a real bargain here!

Hey, what you say, Buck?

-That's right.

Slaves, step right up, make your mark.

Get your slave wages.

-All you good colored boys, go ahead and sign up.

-That's right.

Tear it up.

-Tear it up.

-Tear it up.

Tear it up!

Tear it up!

[ Indistinct shouting ] -The film fills in a blank page in American history, that of the untold story of a battalion of black soldiers during the Civil War.

-Eyes front!

-[ Indistinct shouting ] -Denzel Washington steals the film in a single scene.

♪♪ The whipping scars on his character's back are his idea, inspired by pictures of former slaves.

-Proceed.

♪♪ -The scene instantly becomes an epic cinematic moment.

♪♪ -One of the scenes that had to be the toughest to do, or maybe went through your mind, would be the scene where you're whipped.

Can you talk -- -Not the toughest.

The simplest scene.

The toughest for everyone else that day except me, because I knew exactly what I was doing, and I had the spirits of all of those people who had been whipped for real with me, and I was prepared.

It wasn't tough for me at all.

As a matter of fact, everyone else was crying and people couldn't deal with it because they felt guilty.

I was in the part.

I felt strong.

As a matter of fact, the contact between Matthew and myself, it had nothing to do with the guy whipping me.

It was like, "Well, let's see who's going to break here."

You know, it was almost like that kind of energy.

[ Whip smacking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -The tear was not in the script, but as Edward Zwick, the director, will later reveal, the intensity of the acting performance was such that he kept the camera rolling.

-You said working on this role gave you a new sense of identity as a black American.

-A new feeling of patriotism.

This is a part of history that I was not exposed to.

I don't know how, but somewhere in the American history classes that I took, this was not dealt with, and it makes me feel a lot stronger.

Actually, I've taken this attitude from a fantastic actor who's in the film, Morgan Freeman, that we have a lot more as black Americans to feel proud about, to feel that we do have a stake in this country because our forefathers fought for this country as well.

-The Oscar opens up new and wider possibilities for the actor.

Scripts pour in, roles follow one after the other.

-Ey, mon -- -Not "mon".

Chief.

-No African American actor has ever been so present on the screen and in so many different genres -- -[ Yelling ] -...action, romance, comedy -- right up until his pivotal meeting with Spike Lee.

Together, the two men will make film history with an inflammatory project, a project that had been lying around in Hollywood for years, the biography of Malcolm X, the controversial activist of the civil rights movement.

-[ Chanting "We want justice!"

] -In one sentence, the actor immerses himself, body and soul in this portrait of the icon who has long haunted the nightmares of a certain part of America.

[ Chanting stops ] -Denzel works.

A year before we started to shoot, he told his agent, "I'm not working anymore."

He prepared a year for that role.

What did he do?

"I'm playing a Muslim.

Okay.

I can't eat pork anymore.

I'm playing a Muslim.

I can't drink.

I'm playing -- I have to learn how to speak Arabic.

I have to learn how to read the Quran."

He became a student of Malcolm.

-They're examining you like you're a chicken or a... -The actor's body language is said to have been inspired by that of his preacher father.

His presence and minimalist acting allow him to play a charismatic yet human and vulnerable Malcolm X, as here with Elijah Muhammad, his teacher and mentor, before their split.

-My son... ...you have been a thief, a drug dealer, and a hustler, and the world is still full of temptation.

-The film sends shockwaves through America, not only because a promising actor reveals his immense talent, but because it collides head on with the country's history.

-Action!

-As the larger than life film shoot in 150 different locations with hundreds of extras comes to an end, the black ghettos of Los Angeles erupt.

[ Siren wailing ] [ Indistinct shouting ] The verdict that acquits four police officers responsible for violence against Rodney King, a black cab driver a few months earlier, sparks outrage.

-That's...up, man.

That's...up.

That is...up.

-The racial issue rises to the surface like an explosion of magma, to the point that Spike Lee includes the video of this violent beating in the credits of his film.

-We don't see any American dream.

We've experienced only the American nightmare.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Denzel Washington's performance is seen as an ode to black pride.

-Before there was any such thing as a Republican or a Democrat, we were black.

Before there was any such thing as a Mason or an Elk, we were black.

Before there was any such thing as a Jew or a Christian, we were black people.

In fact, before there was any such place as America, we were black.

-Right!

-And after America has long passed from the scene, there will still be black people.

[ Cheers and applause ] -The Malcolm portrayed by Denzel Washington is suffused with the essence of the present times.

[ Siren wailing ] -Alright, break it up.

You got what you wanted.

-No.

I'm not satisfied.

To the hospital.

-Is it 1993?

I think not much has changed, obviously.

No, that's the thing I'm proud of, most proud of about this film, is that it made young people, black and white and other colors, too, think about their history in this country and what has happened, how they've been miseducated, and to go and learn things for themselves.

I'm real proud of that fact, as I know Spike is as well.

-The connection between the director and his favorite actor turns the box office hit into a generational film.

After being demonized for so long, Malcolm X finally makes his grand entrance into the American national story.

But for the actor, this cult role can also turn into a trap.

-What was it like for you to play this role?

Is this the role of a lifetime for you?

-I hope not.

[ Laughter ] -Not the last one.

-The pitfall would be to remain locked into playing icons of the black struggle.

-I'm not a politician.

I'm an actor, and I'm not -- I've done my bit, and I mean, I will help where I can, but that's an area that I'm, first of all, not that well versed in, and I just want to continue being an actor.

-Give me the missile key, Mr. Hunter.

-To appeal to a wider audience than the black public already won over to his cause, he decides to share top billing with other stars.

He crosses swords with Gene Hackman, leading actor of the 1970s... -I'm the commander of this...ship!

Give me that goddamn key!

-For my life... -...plays opposite Keanu Reeves, Hollywood's in-vogue heartthrob... -My lord and brother, God save you.

-Good e'en, brother.

-If your leisure served, I would speak with you.

-...and comes to the rescue of Julia Roberts, Hollywood's new female muse.

The advantage is twofold for the actor -- to pose as an alter ego of these white stars, and to break a Hollywood taboo, that of the color line, the racial border inherited from segregation.

In "The Pelican Brief", as in "Much Ado About Nothing", Denzel Washington plays roles written for white men.

It's his acting and that alone that wins him the trust of the film directors.

-Denzel has, which the part requires, is a wonderful natural authority, inner dignity, grace, a kind of strength, effortless kind of command.

So, you get leader, you get someone who is effortlessly charismatic, and who also can be very sensitive in a character that needs, as well as being clearly a soldier, to be also melancholic.

-Good Signor Leonardo, are you come to meet your trouble?

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost and you encounter it.

-Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace.

-Ah.

[ Chuckles ] -Win over through his acting, captivate through his charm.

♪♪ That same year, a drama film allows Denzel Washington to consolidate this strategy.

♪♪ Filmed in the birthplace of American democracy, "Philadelphia" is the providential international box office hit for the actor.

-♪ Unrecognizable to myself ♪ -Trust me, I know that they are looking at... -As Joe Miller, the lawyer of a white homosexual man played by Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington invites America to deconstruct its prejudices.

-So let's talk about what this case is really all about -- the general public's hatred, our loathing, our fear of homosexuals, and how that climate of hatred and fear translated into the firing of this particular homosexual, my client, Andrew Beckett.

[ Opera music playing ] -As he gets closer to his client when everything opposes them, through his character, Denzel Washington seems to say to the audience, "If I can identify with a homosexual without being one, then you can identify with a black man without being black."

[ Opera music playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ With this performance, Denzel Washington is now impossible to ignore.

He is no longer a black actor, but a bankable actor.

From now on, it's on his name that a film is made.

His status changes, but he doesn't.

Married to the same woman for years and a father of a large family, he presents himself in the media and to the public as just an ordinary guy leading a normal life.

-You know, I still got to put out the garbage when I get home.

-I do it, too, for goodness sake.

You do to do the washing up?

All that stuff.

-Yeah.

-I find myself standing at the sink saying, "I bet Frank Sinatra is not doing this in Palm Beach.

He's not doing that."

-He's not.

Just you and I.

-He's not cleaning the dog turds off the lawn.

-We're the only ones doing that.

-Yeah.

Do you get sent out to the supermarket?

-All the time.

And I always bring back the wrong thing.

-Of course.

-This Average Joe reassures America with his smooth, perhaps a tad too bland elegance, seduces it even to the point of being the first black man to dominate the coveted rankings of "People Magazine".

-It's not something that I think about every day, you know, stop in that mirror and go, "Ooh."

-"Ooh.

Aren't I fine?"

[ Laughs ] -Sex symbol.

-[ Laughs ] -Get a T-shirt with "sex" on the front and "symbol" on the back.

-[ Laughs ] -Denzel Washington's sex appeal, however, is rarely exploited in his films... ♪♪ ...particularly when his acting partner is a white female.

Kisses are rare, intimacy inexistent.

Could it be that Denzel refuses to play the interracial love card?

The controversy begins in 1993, in "The Pelican Brief".

The romance between the characters, played by Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts, exists in the book.

It's erased on the screen.

♪♪ ♪♪ Kelly Lynch, who costars with him in "Virtuosity", reveals how the actor changed the script.

"He took the script and rewrote it... and there would not be a romantic relationship between these people."

-[ Sobbing ] ♪♪ -Same unease in "Fallen" and "The Bone Collector".

Each time, a potential interracial romance is minimized or nipped in the bud.

-The two of you develop a kind of romance, and in Hollywood, there are not a lot of -- In life, there are not a lot of interracial romances in Hollywood.

There are even fewer than there are in real life.

Was that any kind of an issue at all?

-No.

Not really.

[ Laughs ] And there you have it.

No.

-The two word answers are not going to help me at all.

-That's the truth.

There wasn't an issue at all.

-The unease is evident.

Hollywood and America's inhibition towards mixed race couples is powerful.

But on this slippery slope, the actor plays with the codes.

In these rare love scenes with a white woman, Denzel Washington is careful not to express the slightest pleasure.

-Am I the first white woman you've been with?

-Huh?

-Hmm?

-No, you ain't.

[ Chuckles ] ...I done had plenty.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-That isn't a whore?

Hmm?

-When Malcolm X engages in a superficial embrace in a car, or when Whip Whitaker exchanges a passionless kiss with a drug addict, both men are in the throes of a personal crisis.

Just two scenes, no more, in which the actor neutralizes the fantasy of the white woman that Hollywood has set up as an inaccessible object of desire for a black man.

It's thanks to his status that Denzel Washington is allowed to subvert cliches in this way.

However, there still remains a ceiling that the actor has not yet broken.

-Listen to me.

-In 1999, his portrayal of the boxer Hurricane Carter is unanimously acclaimed.

-I'm 50 years old.

I've been locked up for 30 years.

I put a lot of good people's lives at risk.

Now, do I get out of here?

♪♪ Get me out of here.

-He fails to win the promised Oscar, just like six years earlier for Malcolm X, where he had been the betting favorite.

He doesn't escape the Academy Awards ambivalence towards black actors and actresses.

Stuck between invisibility and caricature, rare are those who have won one.

-The best performance of an actress in supporting roles during 1939, to Hattie McDaniel.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Hattie McDaniel was the first in 1940 for her role as a slave in "Gone with the Wind".

She was invited to the ceremony on the condition that she be seated in the back row.

Sidney Poitier is the most emblematic, the only actor to win an Academy Award in a leading role in 1964 for "Lilies of the Field", one of his least exciting performances.

-It is a long journey to this moment.

-Awards that badly camouflaged the persistent racism of the system as denounced by the actor.

-You ask me questions that fall continually within the Negro-ness of my life.

You ask me questions that pertain to the narrow scope of the summer riots.

I am artist, man, American, contemporary.

I am an awful lot of things, so I wish you would pay me the respect due and not simply ask me about those things.

[ Applause ] -40 years later, Denzel Washington expresses the same anger at being locked into a one-dimensional image.

-Heard it many times in my career.

"Oh, you're the next Sidney Poitier."

I said, "You know, that's the most racist thing I've ever heard in my life, because you're saying there can only be one person at a time.

There was one 40 years ago, and now there's one now, you know, and you and you can only be compared to one other person, and that person has to be black, and that's who you are.

We've decided who -- what you are, what category, and see you later.

That's who you are."

I always resented that.

[ Coughs ] Excuse me.

At the same time, I was like, "Okay."

[ Laughs ] "I'll take it."

You know, great actor, you know, wonderful human being.

♪♪ -I'm the police!

I run...here!

You just live here!

Yeah, that's right.

You better walk away.

Go on.

Walk away, 'cause I'm-a burn this...down.

King Kong ain't got...on me.

-The America of the 2000s is no longer the America of the '60s.

With Alonzo Harris, cult figure, complex and toxic, Denzel Washington undergoes his catharsis.

-That's a'ight.

That's a'ight.

...

I don't give a...

I'm winning anyway.

-"Training Day" is a tipping point.

The actor takes inspiration for his character's looks from a real life police officer involved in a corruption case.

He expresses another facet of his acting, less cerebral and more intuitive.

-There's a scene in this where you're holding two guns on someone, and you kind of scrape the guns against each other as if they're two knives that you're sharpening.

-Look at me.

You want me to suck your... That's what you said, right?

That what you said?

Hmm?

-Was that a bit of business that you came up with when you were holding the guns?

-Of course.

I mean, you know, it's just rhythm, you know?

Acting is like music, you know?

And you improvise and you -- It's like jazz, you know?

There's no rhyme or reason to it.

It's not a plan.

I just did it.

-Didn't you say "Suck my...bitch"?

Don't lie to me.

That's what you said.

You telling me I'm a liar?

You didn't say "Suck my...bitch"?

That's not what you said to me.

So, I'm lying?

-Once again, he rewrites the script, not only to adjust some details, but to change the outcome.

-I told the director I couldn't justify him living in the worst way unless he died in the worst way, that the community turns their back on him, he's slapped around, crawling around on the ground like a snake, and basically gets filled full of lead.

So, we just made it a violent, awful ending for him.

-[ Gasping ] -[ Speaking Russian ] -And why did you insist on that?

-I just thought that's what he deserved.

[ Gunfire ] -The Oscar goes to -- I love my life -- Denzel Washington.

[ Cheers and applause ] -He receives the ultimate accolade.

Denzel Washington becomes the first black man to win the Oscar for best actor after Sidney Poitier.

♪♪ A pivotal night for American cinema.

Halle Berry also wins an award, and Poitier receives an honorary Oscar.

Three black actors celebrated on the same day.

The triple win is historic, but it raises questions.

Is the white bastion of Hollywood buying itself a good conscience?

As usual, Denzel Washington refuses to be sidetracked.

-I think in this case, everybody voted for the people that they thought were the best, and it happens to be three African Americans.

I don't put any particular spin on it other than that.

It may suggest that there are better roles for African Americans also.

-This Oscar win frees the actor from playing model roles and from the need for recognition.

The gray area now becomes his new playground.

It's no longer the time to reassure America, but to challenge it through roles that disconcert.

2007.

Frank Lucas, the antithetical mobster of "American Gangster", brings the police of his country face to face with its moral bankruptcy.

-I ain't seen normal since I was six years old.

Normal is seeing the police ride up to my house, dragging my little 12-year-old cousin out and tying him to a pole, shoving a shotgun in his mouth so hard they bust his teeth, then they bust two shotgun shells in his head and knock his...head off.

That's what normal is to me.

I don't give a...about no... police then.

I don't give a...about no police now.

... -2012.

Tobin Frost, the renegade spy, spurns his country, sullied by cynicism.

-You practice anything a long time, you get good at it.

You tell a hundred lies a day, it sounds like the truth.

Everyone betrays everyone.

-It's a...excuse.

-Yeah, I used to be innocent like you.

Wrapped myself up in the flag and... -Denzel dares to be ambiguous and equivocal.

[ Gunshot ] He commences a new phase, probing more commonplace flaws.

♪♪ John Creasey, the broken alcoholic of "Man on Fire", resembles in many ways Whip Whitaker, the splintered pilot of "Flight"... -Me?

-That's what I'm talking about.

Bring it on back!

Bring it on back!

-...two anti-heroes on the verge of breakdown, ravaged by their neuroses, withdrawn into themselves, but two men capable of redemption.

For one, it comes through the friendship of a little girl.

-You smiled already.

See?

You did -- No, that wasn't -- That was a smirk.

I drank the vodka bottle... -For the other, through the public confession of his lies.

-Captain Whitaker, on the three nights before the accident, October 11th -- -October 11th, October 12th and 13th and 14th, I was intoxicated.

I drank all of those days.

I drank in excess.

-On the morning of the accident -- -I was drunk.

-For John Creasey and Whip Whitaker, salvation is made possible through love and truth... -I'm drunk now.

-...eminently Christian and American values.

Raised by a Pentecostal preacher father, the actor has never made a secret of his faith.

He thus offers all his characters an entrance door to grace, as if their redemption could lead to the nation transcending its failings and persistent hatreds.

♪♪ But America is also unbridled violence, to which the actor jubilantly subscribes.

-[ Grunting ] By bringing together the two pillars of the country -- faith and violence -- Denzel Washington embodies America and its paradoxes in a filmography that boasts nine Oscar nominations... [ Cheers and applause ] ...an achievement that gains him entrance into an exclusive club, that of cinema's very select elite, alongside the greats -- Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Paul Newman, Al Pacino.

A final challenge remains for the actor in order to win his freedom in the all powerful film industry, a challenge that enters a personal ambition.

-Oh, 20 years from now, I think I would like to see myself making films, as a director, possibly, as a producer, possibly, but having more control over the product that I'm involved with.

-He goes behind the camera in 2002 as both producer and director, and can thus choose his own film crew.

-[ Speaking French ] -I'd already made a movie with him, and I didn't really want to work with Denzel again, to be honest.

-[ Speaking French ] -Because when Denzel's an actor, he's in his role, in his character, 24 hours a day.

So, he didn't leave me with a very pleasant expression.

So, when my agent called me and said, "Denzel would like you to do his movie," I didn't understand why, and my first reaction was to say no.

I met Denzel, who was absolutely charming and who knows how to win people over.

He could charm a stone.

And then I said to myself, "Well, we're going to start shooting and it's going to be horrific."

-He wears three hats for this film, even as he also gives himself one of the lead roles... -Seaman Fisher -...a sine qua non condition for the project to be financed.

-At the very start of the preparation, he said to me, "Listen, I've made I don't know how many films, but I've never been interested in where the camera was placed.

You have to tell me everything."

And I saw that Denzel was learning, but it wasn't even learning.

He was taking it all in with an absolutely extraordinary ease.

I saw him become a true filmmaker in a very short period of time.

-Come on.

Move, man.

-Get out of my way, snitch!

-Move, man.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Hoo!

-[ Speaking French ] -There's a moment in the locker room where Antwone Fisher punches a guy who's scripted to make a racist slur.

-[ Speaking French ] -What's cracking.

Fisher?

-Your head if you don't get away from me.

-[ Scoffs ] What is that on your face?

-In the first take, the actor punches him before the guy says the slur.

I said to Denzel, "Yes, it's very good, but we didn't hear the slur," and he replied, "Yes, it's done on purpose, because Antwone Fisher already knows the slur that's coming.

He doesn't need to wait."

And I thought, "Now that's directing."

-With the true story of Antwone Fisher, a sailor confronted by authority, Denzel Washington is conscious of tackling a subject outside the Hollywood canons.

-Want some chips?

-[ Chuckles ] -The traumatic experiences of an ordinary young African American man are of no interest to the studios.

For Denzel, it's a way of giving voice to the invisibles of America, to those considered of no account.

-It's called the slave community.

-I gotta understand somebody beating on me.

-What you went through was, in part, the result of the treatment that slaves received from their masters, and then passed on to their own children, generation to generation to generation, right on down to the Tates.

[ Music playing ] -It's a mixed success, but the director continues his exploration of the African American experience ignored by the official history.

-Now that we sobered up... -His next film, "The Great Debaters", recounts the participation of a small group of high school students in a national debating contest in the 1930s.

-...psychologically weak and dependent on the slave master.

Keep the body.

Take the mind.

I, and every other professor on this campus, are here to help you to find, take back, and keep your righteous mind.

-Denzel Washington is still lacking a story powerful enough to convince Hollywood and the general public that these anonymous destinies are worth recounting.

He finds it in the theater, in the work of African American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson.

Washington begins by directing "Fences", first on Broadway, then for the cinema.

-Answer me when I talk to you.

Don't you eat every day?

-Yeah.

-Nigga... -...as long as you're in my house, you put a "sir" on the end of it when you talk to me.

-Yes, sir.

-You eat every day?

-Yes, sir.

-Got a roof over your head?

-Yes, sir.

-Got clothes on your back?

-Yes, sir.

-Why do you think that is?

-'Cause of you?

-[ Chuckles ] Hell, I know it's 'cause of me.

But why do you think that is?

-Because you like me?

-Like you?

-Troy, a worker stuck in his certainties and confined in his small backyard, resonates with his own story.

-There's so much of this play that reminds me, or so much of this character that reminds me of my father.

You know, he could see as far as he could see, limited education, coming up from the South, hard work.

You know, he didn't like Troy.

He didn't see college.

He didn't understand that.

So, there's a lot of those familiar themes across the color line, really.

It's just, you know, a classic and fun and tragic story, American story.

-Relating the most intimate aspects of the black experience is what brings August Wilson and Denzel Washington together.

And for this reason, the author has always refused to have his plays adapted by white directors.

-So, why did he need a black director?

Could a white director not have... -It's not color.

It's culture.

-Explain the difference, because I think -- -Steven Spielberg did "Schindler's List".

-Mm-hmm.

-Martin Scorsese did "Goodfellas", right?

Steven Spielberg could direct "Goodfellas".

Martin Scorsese probably could have done a good job with "Schindler's List", but there are cultural differences, you know?

I know, you know, we all know what it is when a hot comb hits your hair on a Sunday morning, what it smells like.

That's a cultural difference, not just a color difference.

♪♪ -With this character, Denzel Washington succeeds in transforming an individual destiny into a universal story.

He even earns his stripes as a director when "Fences" is nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 2017.

-Haaaaallelujah!

Denzel Washington has changed the face of Hollywood.

He's become a pop figure, a simple first name, a reference that the film industry can now have fun with.

-It was ten years ago.

I was at a gas station and I noticed a guy at the next pump.

It was Denzel Washington.

-♪ I got my -- ♪ -Hold up.

It actually was Denzel?

-Yeah.

-The star even pervades the iconic film of the African American community.

♪♪ Denzel neither produces nor directs "Black Panther", the Afrofuturistic worldwide box office hit.

He doesn't even play any role in it, and yet his presence can be perceived in the smallest details, from the scars on Trip's lacerated back 30 years earlier, and which inspired Michael B. Jordan for his character's makeup... ♪♪ ...to Chadwick Boseman, the film's leading and formerly penniless actor, who would never have made it if Denzel Washington hadn't paid his tuition.

-There is no "Black Panther" without Denzel Washington.

[ Cheers and applause ] And not just because of me, but my whole cast.

That generation stands on your shoulders.

The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refuse to compromise along the way laid the blueprints for us to follow, and so now, let he who has watered be watered.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Sanctified by the generation that came after him, the star is sitting pretty, and has established his status as the godfather of the new black Hollywood, particularly on the late night chat shows, the meccas of self-mockery and offbeat humor.

-I went to the premiere for "Black Panther" here in New York, and I saw Ryan Coogler and Chad, and he said, "Oh, you know, I just wanted to thank you for paying."

I said, "Yeah, that's why I'm here.

I'm not here --" [ Laughter ] "I'm not here to see -- I like the movie, 'Black Panther'.

Yeah.

Good.

Wakanda Forever, but where's my money?"

-[ Laughs ] -But the old fractures resurface.

-[ Chanting "You will not replace us!"

] Hoo!

Hoo!

Hoo!

Hoo!

-The success of "Black Panther" and Denzel Washington collide with the return of white supremacist America... [ Indistinct chanting ] ...galvanized by a president who plays with fire.

The plague of racism continues to infect the country, and the violence against black people reinforces the fracture.

♪♪ On the surface, Denzel remains silent, at the risk of disconcerting the African American community.

Once again, his language will be that of the cinema... -There you go.

Free.

Read that.

Can you read?

-Yeah.

-What's it say?

-Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me".

-Alright.

You read that, we got a deal.

-...a scene in the form of a manifesto.

The essay that Robert McCall hands to his young neighbor is written by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Published in the midst of the turmoil the country was experiencing at the time, the book castigates the gangrene eating away at America and destroying the lives of black men.

The shockwave caused by George Floyd's death in May 2020 is felt worldwide.

-[ Indistinct chanting ] -America on the brink of chaos.

♪♪ A viral video circulates on social media.

On a roadside, Denzel plays conciliator between a black vagrant and police officers.

♪♪ Just a few months later, he affirms his deepest respect for law enforcement.

♪♪ Denzel Washington is no longer afraid to chip his image because he imposed it where it didn't yet exist.

The man who broke the glass ceiling did so by walking a tightrope.

So, when he has to take a stand on Hollywood's racism, he holds himself up as a model.

-The Oscars are being criticized for lack of diversity.

I'm just wondering, what do you think about that?

-I don't have to think about it.

I've lived it.

I've been the guy at the Oscars without my name being called.

I've been the guy at the Oscars when my name is called.

I've been the guy at the Oscars when everybody thought they was going to call my name, and they didn't.

So, I've lived it.

-So, what would you say to the people who are looking at this process and saying it's unfair?

-Yeah, and so what?

We gonna give up?

If you're looking for an excuse, you'll find one.

-In race.

-You can find it wherever you like.

We can't live like that.

Just do the best you can do.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Denzel Washington has never broken the pact he made with himself.

Like many of his characters, he's explored the paths to freedom.

♪♪ And the reason he endures is because, unlike Macbeth... -[ Grunts ] -...he is not afraid to disappear or to be replaced.

[ Both grunting ] Denzel Washington already belongs to history.

-[ Grunts ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪