“One of the first [films I saw] was Bye Bye Birdie at Radio City Music Hall. It’s funny, that opening scene of Do the Right Thing, in which Rosie Perez dances to ‘Fight the Power’, that came, I realised later on, from the opening of Bye Bye Birdie and Ann Margret singing about Birdie being drafted.”
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ON WHAT DISTINGUISHES A SPIKE LEE JOINT?
“It’s hard for me to describe. I think it’s just really all the ingredients that I put into my film. Whatever film it is, whatever subject matter it is. Whether it’s a documentary or a narrative film. The connective tissue is that it’s coming through me, but all the stories I feel are different. They’re connected but they’re different. Fingers on a hand. Toes on a foot.”
ON DOUBTING YOUR OWN ABILITIES
“There is no way I could be in the position I am now, if I had doubt. That came from my parents and grandparents – even if they had thought it, they never once said: ‘You can’t do that.’ They said: ‘We support you, but you gotta work hard.’ You had to bust your ass.”
ON THE OPEN-ENDED NATURE OF HIS FILMS
“More often than not, I let the audience do some work.”
“As a writer, I want everybody to get a chance to voice their opinions. If each character thinks that they’re telling the truth, then it’s valid. Then at the end of the film, I leave it up to the audience to decide who did the right thing.”
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY
“Many people had passed on [She’s Gotta Have It, the television series]. The reason it got made was because Netflix has three black women executives – Pauline Fischer, Tara Duncan and Layne Eskridge – who knew the cultural significance of Nola Darling and Mars Blackmon. Other people didn’t get it… Every time someone says no, they never tell you why, they’re very polite. They’re not going to say, ‘This sucks,’ because they don’t want to burn a bridge, and they want you to come with the next thing. But all the people who said no – there was no black person in the room with them.”
ON CONNECTING WITH AUDIENCES
“We knew that if we connected this period film [BlacKkKlansman] to today, we would have a good chance for it to do well… Sometimes films don’t click, audiences don’t get it right away. People did not get Bamboozled. They didn’t get it. They get it now.”
ON OPENING CREDITS
“I really pay attention to opening credit sequences. It’s the way to get the audience’s mind attuned to what’s going to follow for the next two hours or so. It’s much more than something you have to do because of a contract. You can make it interesting and creative.”
ON CASTING
“I’m very picky with the people who I cast in my films. The number one goal every film is to get, as best you can, the right people for the roles you have in the film. Money prevents that sometimes, schedule prevents that sometimes Ð those factors play a part in casting.”
ON RETIREMENT
“I’m going to try to work for as long as Akira Kurosawa did. My hero. He was working through his early 80s. I’m [61]. So I got a lot more stories, a lot more films, a lot more documentaries. A lot more work.”
Sources: The Guardian Ð ÔSpike Lee: ÒThis guy in the White Househas given the green light for the KlanÓÕ, by Tim Adams (2018); TheAtlantic Ð ÔWeÕre in DisarrayÕ, by Sam Fragoso (2015); Spike Lee:ThatÕs My Story And IÕm Sticking To It, Kaleem Aftab; Rolling StoneÐ ÔFight the Power: Spike Lee on Do the Right ThingÕ, by GavinEdwards (2014); The New York Times Magazine Ð ÔThe CultureCaught Up With Spike Lee Ð Now What?Õ, by Thomas ChattertonWilliams (2017); Vanity Fair Ð ÔÒIÕm Not Using the Word ÔComedyÕÓ:Spike Lee on BlacKkKlansman, the Trump EraÉÕ, by K Austin Collins(2018); BlacKkKlansman production notes (2018)
