CUTTING THROUGH THE ANGER; `AMERICAN HISTORY X' TURNS DIRECTOR AGAINST FILM.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

``American History X's'' star, producers and studio all hope that the controversial new movie's message condemning racial hatred is heard above the elaborately staged complaints of its disgruntled director, Tony Kaye.

``If you look at `American History X' as what some may refer to as a message movie, I'm very, very proud that this messenger is ugly and right in your face,'' says Steve Tisch, one of the film's executive producers. ``But it's also a message that has to be told, and the story has to be told in your face.''

``I'm saddened at the prospect that Tony may not participate in the discussion that this film is going to provoke,'' adds Edward Norton, the respected actor who plays a violent, neo-Nazi skinhead who turns against hate in `X.'' ``I'm as proud of it as anything that I've been involved in, both the performance and the film. And it's a remarkable first film.''

Mitch Goldman, marketing and distribution president for the film's distributor, New Line Cinema, says ``It's not just a movie about skinheads. It's about humanity, hatred and love, with an undeniably powerful performance by Edward Norton. And I think Tony Kaye is a genius despite his problems with us.''

Those problems have included a general characterization of first-time feature filmmaker Kaye, a 46-year-old English commercials director and provocation-prone performance artist, as a Hollywood outsider with delusions that he's a latter-day Orson Welles. He's been attacking New Line, Norton and others involved with the film since late spring, claiming that they edited the release cut of the picture against his wishes.

And his tactics have been bizarre, even by industry ``creative differences'' standards. Kaye took out cryptic ads in the show-business trade papers quoting classic poets, scriptures and John Lennon on subjects such as greed and betrayal. Then there was the meeting with New Line production president Michael De Luca, to which Kaye brought along a priest, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk and a camera to record the absurd encounter.

An effort to have the Directors Guild of America replace his credit with their official pseudonym Alan Smithee failed because he publicly badmouthed the film, which is a violation of the union's agreement with the studios (Kaye has since tried to get ``X's'' direction credited to Humpty Dumpty). He was more successful, however, at persuading the prestigious Toronto Film Festival not to screen the picture.

These shenanigans have gotten Kaye dubbed either nuts or self-destructive by a town notorious for telling troublemakers they'll never work in it again. However, the reluctant auteur claims that his concerns are essentially the same as the film's defenders: to put its tough social message across.

``I was hoping to make a movie that really, truly investigates racism and why this kind of hate and misunderstanding exists,'' says Kaye, speaking deliberately in a working-class English accent. ``My hope was that it would provoke some sort of positive dialogue that might do some good.

``In the end, we ended up with a movie about a rower from Yale,'' he adds, referring to his Ivy League-educated star. ``Due to the narcissism of Norton and his current clout within the industry, he managed to f--- up my process.''

What went wrong

Kaye's point of contention is that the current, approximately two-hour cut of the film lingers much too long on both the impassioned hate speeches delivered by Norton's rage-filled Derek Vinyard and on the character's admirable, if preachy, conversion to a more tolerant attitude. He claims that an 87-minute cut he delivered was much harder hitting.

``There's a lot in the movie that he just rambles on about for far too long,'' Kaye complains of Norton. ``But that's only half the problem. The other problem, and a lot of people are going to miss this, is that the way this movie is structured right now; it lionizes a neo-Nazi and there's not really a black voice in it.''

Norton, 29, was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar for his first film, ``Primal Fear,'' and has only made three critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful features - ``Everyone Says I Love You,'' ``The People vs. Larry Flynt'' and ``Rounders'' - since. He denies having either the clout or the desire to recut ``X,'' and Kaye is now backing off earlier claims that Norton actually re-edited the film himself.

But even though the New Line general line is that the release version is essentially a Kaye cut with minor changes, producer John Morrissey reveals that the longer Kaye spent in the editing room, the more alarming the result grew.

``Everyone was thrilled with Tony's initial versions of the film,'' Morrissey says. ``But his subsequent versions got progressively more spare and more sparse and more bare-boned, and less emotional and even less emotional. All he was interested in was how the shots looked. When it became obvious that it needed some more emotional support, he acknowledged this and he invited Edward into the editing room. And then things started to go the way they went.''

The New Line faction points to an eight-week extension (that expanded into 10 weeks) requested by Kaye that did not yield a discernibly different movie.

The director, who consulted with the Nobel Prize-winning Caribbean poet Derek Walcott on how to fix the picture, admits that he's a slow editor. But he blames the usual suspects for his lack of 11th-hour progress.

``They screwed with me for a year, making me attend to their whims,'' he says. ``Now, when you put someone in a spin for a year, when they come out of that, they have to get their feet back again. I just wasn't finished at the end of those two months.''

Norton has a different, creative psychology take on the matter.

``In essence, it's his first film and, I think, Tony's just scared to let it go,'' the actor reckons. ``You just have to at a certain point; I think Coppola said films never get finished, they get abandoned, and that's very true. Tony's demonstrated amply that there is no new, radical vision of the film. I wish he would just shake hands with everyone who worked very hard with him on it and say, `Well hell, however it happened, it seems to be provoking very much the response that we all set out to get.' ''

That is not going to happen. Kaye hopes to encourage civil-rights groups to picket theaters showing ``American History X'' (he denies reports that he offered his tickets to the premiere to white supremacist Tom Metzger, noting that he has not been invited to the premiere himself). He also swears he'll never work with anyone from the ``X'' crowd again except actress Beverly D'Angelo, who plays Vinyard's troubled, widowed mom.

As for working in the field he's always wanted to break into, Kaye could be characterized as an optimistic realist.

``I've risked never working again,'' he admits. ``But I think if somebody's got something to offer, there's always going to be someone there to take them up on that. And I've certainly exposed what my modus operandum is; if someone does work with me, they know what they're going to be walking into.''

Which is, ironically, in some ways the kind of publicity that conventional marketing can't deliver.

``I've tried to make it an interesting attack,'' admits Kaye, whose self-described Hype Art installations have included hiring homeless people to walk around rich art museums, including L.A.'s Getty Center, wearing ``By Tony Kaye'' signs. ``I don't really think I've put anyone off from seeing the film. Quite the opposite; I think people are intrigued.

``The thing is, there are certain bits in the film that I think are as good as anything else you'll see,'' he admits. ``It's just that all of these things are lost in the appalling framework. I'd just like to apologize to anyone who goes to see it, and tell them that it'll be much better the next time they see my name on the end of a film.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) `AMERICAN HISTORY X' FILES

A look at the conflict on and off screen

(2) Edward Norton, portraying a neo-Nazi skinhead who has a change of heart, says of ``American History X'' and his role in it: ``I'm as proud of it as anything that I've been involved in.''

(3) no caption (Edward Furlong)