Craft Leaders: Barry Alexander Brown, Editor

Blackkklansman, the latest film from director Spike Lee and editor Barry Alexander Brown, concludes with significant footage from the Charlottesville Alt-Right clashes with counter-protesters last August. It’s a typically hot button jab at the establishment from the filmmakers, whose careers go back three decades encompassing films as incendiary as Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X.

“It’s a very overt political message but neither one of us is afraid of that,” says Brown of the footage which includes scenes of the killing of counter-protester Heather Heyer. “The ending is pretty brutal but very effective. I’ve seen people come out of a screening and know that it’s got under their skin. That’s what we want to do, to make you feel something.”

While most renowned for editing the lion’s share of Lee’s work, Brown is also an Oscar nominated producer-director in his own right whose work tends to return to themes around activism and social justice.

The deep south
Barry Alexander Brown was born in Warrington in the UK in 1960 when his father was stationed at RAF base Burtonwood as part of the US Airforce.

His career, though, is heavily influenced by…