The production of the movie was a mess, the director had a completely different vision but he's a weird lunatic who wouldn't show up on time and nobody on set liked him so halfway through Edward Norton started reworking everything, cutting out scenes, rearranging existing scenes and redoing other ones.
Also the directors shtick is showing social issues from both sides with fair footing, which DEFINITELY would've caused issues with higher ups given American History X's subject matter.
You know at the end of the movie where his brother gets shot and derek yells out some shit like "I can't believe I let this happen!!!". The context in the final cut makes it seem like he's referring to his racism at the beginning influencing his brother into being racist and "provoking" the black guy at the beginning of the movie, who ends up shooting him at the end of the film.
The "provacation" let me remind you, was him non violently telling the nigger to stop beating up his classmate in the bathroom stall at the start of the movie. The way they cut the movie makes it seem like it's Derek's fault some deranged nigger shot his brother.
The original context of him yelling out "I can't believe I let this happen!" was him giving up his racism and becoming disarmed to black people just because he met a couple exceptions to the rule. If he had not let his guard down, never gave up the racism, he would've noticed that black guy earlier when they walked into the school and perceived him as a threat. But he didn't.
There's supposed to be another scene after that, which was replaced with his brother reading an mlk quote at the end.
The original final scene after he gets shot was a fade to black and the scene changes: you hear a hair buzzer and the camera pans up to a sink slowly filling with hair and then the credits roll.
It's supposed to be cyclical. The blacks cause his racism at the beginning, he softens up in jail because he meets a nice one and reconnects with his old principal, all leading up to him being redpilled again by his brothers murder.
It presents racism not as some irrational prejudice from a dumb redneck, but as a mans logical reaction to his environment and the actions of all the blacks around him mostly being monsters.
He met two nice black guys, felt guilty for his racism and then was completely disarmed, ignoring the fact most blacks are still horrible people, leading to his brother's death. The original idea of the movie is profound.
This is all info from various accounts from different people who were on set that I read months ago, it was interesting looking into all of this. I wish the original cut could be leaked somehow.
