In 2019, Kanye West, also known as Ye, hired a documentary filmmaker named Nico Bellesteros to follow him around and film. Bellesteros, at the start of the project, was just 18 years old, and he ended up following Ye around for the next six years, filming over 3,000 hours of footage.
That period covered a lot of very newsworthy events, including West’s feuds with Saturday Night Live, his embrace of Donald Trump, the dissolution of his marriage to Kim Kardashian, his “presidential campaign” in 2020, and ultimately his antisemitic outbursts that led essentially all business and creative partners to distance themselves from him.
We see his fight with Michael Che backstage at SNL, as well as a big speech about slave owners, while incongruously seated next to Jimmy Fallon announcer Steve Higgins.
The filming, however, ended before we got to such “highlights” as West releasing a “Heil Hitler” song, or anything involving his current wife, the one he makes get naked on red carpets.
Nothing New to Say
So how is In Whose Name? Not very good. When I heard about the project, I had assumed Ye had retained a novice filmmaker who was pliable and could be easily pushed around by the subject. But the film isn’t even that interesting ― in fact, it has just about nothing to say about Ye that we wouldn’t have known already, just from reading the media coverage.
It’s nearly pure cinema veritae, with very little narration, and the occasional news clip.
But however it’s presented, just about nothing surprising in the whole film. Yes, we see Ye yelling at people. Yes, we see him fighting with Kardashian, as well as various members of his own family and hers. At one point, he’s talking about wanting to spread awareness about mental health, while at other times, he’s clearly deep in the throes of it. There’s a great deal of time spent on that period when Ye was speaking at a lot of megachurches.
Was that presidential campaign the real deal, or a ratfucking operation masterminded by Jared Kushner? More likely the latter, but there’s no confirmation. Even the antisemitism episode, which I remember dragging on continuously for months, is dealt with very quickly, for a few minutes, near the end.
The film has cameos from quite a few people who have been in the news lately. Sean “Diddy” Combs appears, as does Elon Musk. And Drake. And Charlie Kirk, who we see meeting with West early on in his conservative phase. There’s a lot more time spent with Ye and his fellow, unhinged, raving antisemite, Candace Owens.
The Biggest Takeaway
The biggest takeaway? At the beginning of the filming period, Kanye was frequently surrounded by prominent people, and while certainly controversial, remained a celebrity in good standing. By the end, perhaps deservedly, nobody wants anything to do with him.
This movie is not going to change anyone’s mind about Kanye West. Mostly because it adds nothing to our understanding of him at all.
I almost wish a real documentarian had gotten hold of the footage and done something, anything, better with it than this.
