It’s hard to believe that Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” is 30 years old. On a recent visit to this exceptional work – one of the greatest movies ever made – its significance has grown with the passage of time. The event that takes place at the end of the film – is something that keeps happening all across America. The feelings of frustration and doubt that permeated our society in 1989 – have only been magnified and its problems have gone ignored. Spike is angry himself and he never allows his film to become didactic. This film pulsates with risks and stimuli. Yes – he’s got things to say – but he lets his visuals do the talking. There’s plenty of urgency in this film – as well as plenty of humor. He is a daring filmmaker who raises issues others dare to bring up and he evades simple resolutions in this film. After the movie ends – you’re left to think and reflect (and we have plenty of time to do that right now). The title itself is provocative. Are we doing the right thing?
“Do The Right Thing” takes place in a single and extremely hot day in Brooklyn – where the local pizzeria in a mostly black neighborhood hangs only Italian actors on its wall. That wall becomes a symbol of racism, and long simmering tensions come to a boil. What starts as a hopeful day quickly turns bad.
Lee’s approach is very heightened. He builds a quilt of disparate vignettes – of moments – in the daily routine of this neighborhood – that throb with life. Things are vibrant – notice the colors! – warm colors that become symbolic and foreboding. He uses in your face shots. He doesn’t allow you to look away. He gives equal time to latinos, blacks to Italians – each group building its own distinctiveness. There’s organized chaos in his very determined approach. I always tell my students that the way a film is put together – its choices – should be dictated by the themes of the movie. This is a perfect example of that, wherein the style and the content go hand in hand.
Spike assembled quite an unforgettable ensemble: Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, John Turturro, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Rosie Perez (in her acting debut),Samuel L. Jackson and Danny Aiello who was nominated for Best Supporting actor.
The film ends with opposing quotations by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. One advocates that violence is impractical and amoral, and the latter says he doesn’t advocates violence, but at the same time he isn’t against using it if it’s in self-defense.
One of the characters in the film prophetically exclaims. “If this hot weather continues, it’s going to melt the polar ice caps and the whole wide world.”
Do The Right Thing.
Love,
Roger
Available to rent on Amazon Prime, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and Google Play.
Directed by Spike Lee
Written by Spike Lee
Starring: Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Ossis Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson
120 minutes
Set on one block of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy Do or Die neighborhood, at the height of summer, Spike Lee’s 1989 masterpiece confirmed him as a writer and filmmaker of peerless vision and passionate engagement. Over the course of a single day, the easygoing interactions of a cast of unforgettable characters—Da Mayor, Mother Sister, Mister Señor Love Daddy, Tina, Sweet Dick Willie, Buggin Out, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito and Lee’s Mookie among them—give way to heated confrontations as tensions rise along racial fault lines, ultimately exploding into violence.
About Writer and Director Spike Lee
Born as Shelton Jackson Lee, Spike Lee is a renowned film director and actor famous for dealing with controversial issues like racism, politics and urban violence in his films. Known for his candid portrayal of taboo topics, he is a fearless and independent minded man who lets his films do the talking. He has made many movies such as School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Malcolm X which not only delivered powerful messages to the audiences, but also established him as one of the most respected directors in Hollywood. The son of a teacher and a jazz musician, he was brought up in a culturally and artistically rich atmosphere. His mother played an important role in kindling his imagination—she often took him to museums, galleries and plays and instilled in the boy a love for African American literature. As a young man he realized that he wanted to make films that celebrated the African culture. He made his debut as a director and actor with She’s Gotta Have It which was a huge success. Since then he has made numerous other movies that explore the greatness of African American culture. He is also the founder of the production house ‘40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks’ which has produced more than 35 films to date. (thefamousepeople.com)
Real-Life
Spike Lee was inspired to write Do the Right Thing by what is now known as the Howard Beach incident. On December 20, 1986, a mob of twelve angry white men chased down and beat three black men who had just left a pizzeria in the predominantly Italian-American community. During the pursuit, the mob forced one of their victims, Michael Griffith, to run onto the Belt Parkway, where he was hit by a car and killed. In the behind-the-scenes footage of Do the Right Thing, Lee recalls the protest led by Reverend Al Sharpton and the call for all African-Americans to boycott white-owned pizzerias, an act that inspired the scene in which Buggin Out instigates a boycott of Sal’s.(criterion.com)
Seeing Red
One of the most impressive feats of the movie is how powerfully you feel the heat of the summer day. Besides placing Sterno cans near the camera to keep the air wavy, color was the filmmakers’ most important tool in transferring the temperature to the screen. “I did a lot of research on [color usage’s] psychology and worked on a controlled palette that pretty much stayed in the warm range—yellows, reds, earth tones, ambers—and tried to stay away from blues and greens, which have a cooling effect,” cinematographer Ernest Dickerson told The Guardian. That rule extended to costuming, set design, and props, which is why almost every scene has at least one red element in it. (mentalfloss.com)
Public Enemy
Chuck D: “Fight The Power” was not the first song that Public Enemy submitted. [To Spike] “You wanted us to do ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ and we were like I don’t know if that’s gonna fit. Then Hank [Shocklee] and I and Bill [Stephney] came together and said “Fight The Power.” You told us a little bit about the wall and that’s where the Elvis and John Wayne thing comes from. They’re on the walls of being icons of America, but the contributors weren’t on the wall…a couple passes came your way…It was the second “Fight The Power”…we all knew about the first “Fight The Power” by The Isley’s in 1975. It was the first song I heard with a curse word in it. Talking about the “bullshit going down”…There’s no way in hell there would be a “Fight The Power” without a Do The Right Thing.
“Lift Every Voice,” the Black National Anthem, does still open the film. (bet.com)
Ol’ Blue Eyes
In an interview with director Martin Scorcese, Spike reveals that one famous Italian was not happy with his photo being burned in the Sal’s Pizzeria fire.
“I’ve got a funny Frank Sinatra story. In Do the Right Thing [1989], the wall of fame was of all Italians. One of the pictures burned was Frank Sinatra’s. So, a couple of films later, I’m doing Jungle Fever [1991], and there are three songs I want to use of Frank Sinatra’s. Frank Sinatra doesn’t want to speak to me. I have to speak to his daughter Tina. I said, “Tina. Miss Sinatra. Frank, your father, I adore him. He was my mother’s favorite performer. I chose these songs from September of My Years [1965] because that was her favorite album, and I meant no disrespect by burning his picture at all!” [laughs] So they made me squirm a little bit, but they relented and let me use the three songs in Jungle Fever. (bet.com)