Word: filming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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These days his subject matter is grittier, but Spike Lee is still fighting to make movies on his own terms. Paramount Pictures, Lee claims, asked him to tone down the ending of Do the Right Thing, his incendiary new film about race relations, so the 32-year-old director took his picture to Universal rather than subdue the race riot in his final scene. Fiercely independent, Lee writes, directs and produces his films to prevent others from "meddling." He doesn't have an agent, publicist or manager, but the trade-offs of independence are worth it. "What...
With his spindly legs, goatee and black New York Knicks cap, Spike Lee looks more like a cartoon character than the creator of the most controversial film of the summer. He is lean and wiry -- 120 lbs. tightly wound around a 5-ft. 6- in. frame. His hip, distinctively New York style has made him a familiar pop-culture image: stone-washed jeans, a Nike T shirt, a leather Public Enemy medallion around his neck, an ear stud and black Nike Air Jordans, practically his trademark since he appeared with basketball star Michael Jordan in Nike...
...question that bores him is likely to be answered with a yawn and roll of his eyes. But press the right button, and he engages like an assault rifle, his words ricocheting off familiar targets. He rails against New York Mayor Ed Koch: "He's a racist. Hopefully my film will force a couple of votes, and Ed won't be around for long"; Walt Disney: "Snow White, Song of the South? I hated that stuff. That's the difference between me and Steven Spielberg"; even Michael Jackson: "Cutting off his Negroid nose, I think that's sick...
...observes actress Ruby Dee, who plays Mother Sister in Do the Right Thing. The Howard Beach incident, in which a black man died after being chased onto a freeway by a white mob -- an expression in Lee's mind of a double standard inflicted on blacks -- inspired the film. Even the controversy that erupted over his use at the end of the film of a Malcolm X quote condoning violence in the name of self-defense reflects the pervasiveness of that double standard, he argues. "We're not allowed to do what everyone else can. The idea of self-defense...
...each of his films, Lee stirs the social pot. His first success, She's Gotta Have It, in 1986, explored sexual stereotypes with the tale of a liberated young black woman who refuses to give up her three lovers. School Daze, Lee's 1988 musical, examines the tensions between light- and darker- skinned blacks on an all-black college campus; it evoked the ire of some blacks, who charged him with airing the race's dirty laundry in public. With Do the Right Thing, Lee has produced his most provocative film...