Spike Lee by Leila

A BIOGRAPHY OF

SPIKE LEE

THE BIOGRAPHY OF

SPIKE LEE

Author Bousbia Inès

Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres! Tweet from @therealdonaldtrump

“I think it is very important that films make people look at what they’ve forgotten.”

BIOGRAPHY

FACTS

Controversial filmmaker Spike Lee (born ca. 1957) is known for powerful films such as She’s Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do The Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Malcolm X (1992), and many others. “Fight the power,” the theme song to his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, could easily be Spike Lee’s personal motto. From his earliest days as a student filmmaker to his $33-million epic Malcolm X, Lee has shown a willingness to tackle prickly issues of relevance to the black community—and has savored every ounce of controversy his films invariably produce. “Spike loves to fight,” the filmmaker’s friend and business associate Nelson George told Vanity Fair. “There’s a gleeful look he gets, a certain kind of excitement in his eyes when sh-t is being stirred up.” “I guess you could call me

an instigator,” Lee admitted in an interview with Vogue. Although the bane of Hollywood executives, Lee’s delight in playing the provocateur has not only made his own films bankable, but has also created an industry-wide awareness of an untapped market niche. Following the unforeseen box office success of Lee’s earliest films, Hollywood’s gates have opened to a new generation of young African American filmmakers. “Spike put this trend in vogue,” Warner Bros. executive vice president Mark Canton told Time. “His talent opened the door for others.” Lee relishes his role as path-paver. “Every time there is a success,” he explained to Ebony, “it makes it easier for other blacks. The industry is more receptive than it has ever been for black films and black actors. We have so many stories to tell, but we can’t do them all. We just need more black filmmakers.”

Shelton Jackson Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on the eve of the civil rights era. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, an area that would figure largely in his work as a mature filmmaker. Lee’s awareness of his African American identity was established at an early age. His mother, Jacquelyn, infected her children with a schoolteacher’s enthusiasm for black art and literature. “I was forced to read Langston Hughes, that kind of stuff,” Lee told Vanity Fair. “And I’m glad my mother made me do that.” His father, Bill, an accomplished jazz musician, introduced him to African American jazz and folk legends like Miles Davis and Odetta. By the time he was old enough to attend school, the already independent Lee had earned the nickname his mother had given him as an infant, Spike—an allusion to his toughness. When he and his siblings were offered the

option of attending the predominantly white private school where his mother taught, Lee opted instead to go the public route, where he would be assured of the companionship of black peers. “Spike used to point out the differences in our friends,” recalled his sister Joie, who was a private school student. “By the time I was a senior,” she told Mother Jones, “I was being channeled into white colleges.” Lee chose to go to his father’s and grandfather’s all-black alma mater, Morehouse College, where he majored in mass communication.

PURSUED FILM CAREER It was at Morehouse that Lee found his calling. Following his mother’s unexpected death in 1977, Lee’s friends tried to cheer him with frequent trips to the movies. He quickly became a fan of directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Martin Scorsese, and Akira Kurosawa. But it wasn’t until he had seen Michael Cimino’s Deer Hunter that Lee knew the die was cast. His friend John Wilson recalled their conversation on the ride home from the film in an interview with Vanity Fair. “John, I know what I want to do,” Lee had said. “I want to make films.” But not just any films: Lee wanted to make films that would capture the black experience, and he was willing to do so by whatever means necessary. “Spike didn’t just want to get in the door of the house,” Wilson explained. “He wanted to get in, rearrange the furniture— then go back and publicize the password.” Lee pursued his passion at New York University, where he enrolled in the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. One of only a handful of African American students, he wasted no time incurring the wrath of his instructors with his affinity for

“rearranging the furniture.” As his firstyear project, Lee produced a ten-minute short, The Answer, in which a black screenwriter is assigned to remake D.W. Griffith’s classic film The Birth of a Nation. The Answer was panned. Although the film program’s director, Eleanor Hamerow, told the New York Times, “it’s hard to redo Birth of a Nation in ten minutes,” Lee suspected that his critics were offended by his digs at the legendary director’s stereotypical portrayals of black characters. “I was told I was whiskers away from being kicked out,” he told Mother Jones. “They really didn’t like me saying anything bad about D.W. Griffith, for sure.” Hardly deterred, Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film that won him the 1983 Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Award, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. Although the honor enhanced his credibility as a director, it didn’t pay the bills. Faced with the reality of survival, Lee worked for a movie distribution house cleaning and shipping film while hustling funds for a semi-auto-biographical film, The Messenger.

A coming-of-age story about a young bicycle messenger, The Messenger was aborted prematurely when sufficient funding failed to materialize. “We were in preproduction the entire summer of 1984, waiting on this money to come, and it never did”, Lee told Vanity Fair. “Then, finally, I pulled the plug. I let a lot of people down, crew members and actors that turned down work. I wasn’t

the most popular person. We were devastated.” But all was not lost; Lee had learned his lesson. “I saw I made the classic mistakes of a young filmmaker, to be overly ambitious, do something beyond my means and capabilities,” he said. “Going through the fire just made me more hungry, more determined that I couldn’t fail again.”

Shot: Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads

SCORED A SURPRISE HIT WITH SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT

When he filmed She’s Gotta Have It a year later, Lee’s determination payed off. Made on a shoestring $175,000 budget in just twelve days, the black-andwhite picture was shot on one location with a limited cast and edited on a rented machine in Lee’s apartment. By the time it was completed, Lee was so deeply in debt that his processing lab threatened to auction off the film’s negative. After Island Pictures agreed to distribute it, She’s Gotta Have It finally opened in 1986. A light comedy centering on sex-loving artist Nola Darling and her relationships with three men, the film pokes fun at gender relations and offers an insightful

Shot: Joie Lee in She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

spin on stereotypical macho male roles. It packed houses not only with the black audience Lee had anticipated, but also with a crossover, art-house crowd. Grossing over $7 million, the low-budget film was a surprise hit. With the success of She’s Gotta Have It, Lee became known in cinematic circles not only as a director, but also as a comic actor. Mars Blackmon—one of Nola’s rival lovers, played by Lee—won an instant following with his now-famous line, “Please baby, please baby, please baby, baby, baby, please.” “After She’s Gotta Have It, Spike could have gone a long way with Mars Blackmon,” the film’s co-producer Monty Ross told Mother Jones.

“He could’ve done Mars Blackmon the Sequel, Mars Blackmon Part 5. “ Not anxious to be typecast, though, Lee “said to the studios ‘Mars Blackmon is dead.”’

Shot: Tisha Campbell and Giancarlo Esposito (encres) in School Daze, (1988)

SCHOOL DAZE: A MICROCOSM OF BLACK LIFE With a major hit under his belt and the backing of Island Pictures, Lee had more latitude with his next film, a musical called School Daze. An exposé of color discrimination within the black community, School Daze draws on Lee’s years at Morehouse. “The people with the money,” he told the New York Times, “most of them have light skin. They have the Porsches, the B.M.W.’s, the quote

good hair unquote. The others, the kids from the rural south, have bad, kinky hair. When I was in school, we saw all this going on.” This black caste system, Lee explained to Newsweek, was not a limited phenomenon. “I used the black college as a microcosm of black life.” School Daze created a brouhaha in the black community: while many applauded Lee’s efforts to explore a complex social problem,

others were offended by his willingness to “air dirty laundry.” Everyone agreed that the film was controversial. When production costs reached $4 million, Island Pictures got hot feet and pulled out. Within two days, Lee had arranged a deal with Columbia Pictures that included an additional $2 million in production costs. But Columbia, then under the direction of David Puttnam, apparently misun-

derstood the film’s true nature. “They saw music, they saw dancing, they saw comedy,” Lee told Mother Jones. By the time School Daze was released in 1988, Puttnam had been ousted. Despite the fact that the studio’s new management failed to promote it, the film grossed $15 million.

Shot: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee at the Cannes Film Festival to promote Do the Right Thing.

EXPLORED RACIAL TENSION IN DO THE RIGHT THING School Daze established Lee’s reputation as a director ready to seize heady issues by the horns. Do the Right Thing, released in 1989, confirmed it. The story of simmering racial tension between Italian and African Americans in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, the film becomes a call to arms when violence erupts in response to the killing of a black man by white police officers. It ends on a note of seeming ambiguity with two irreconcilable quotes: Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” followed by Malcolm X’s, “I am not against violence in self-defense. I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense. I call it intelligence.” The meaning of “the right thing,” Lee told People, is not ambiguous. “Black America is tired of having their brothers and sisters murdered by the police for

no reason other than being black.” “I’m not advocating violence,” he continued. “I’m saying I can understand it. If the people are frustrated and feel oppressed and feel this is the only way they can act, I understand.” Critical response to the film was both enthusiastic and wary. Media critic Roger Ebert called it “the most honest, complex and unblinking film I have ever seen about the subject of racism.” Others voiced warnings of possible violence. New York magazine said, “Lee appears to be endorsing the outcome, and if some audiences go wild he’s partly responsible.”

Shot: Denzel Washington in Mo’ Better Blues (1990).

STRIKING A BALANCE: MO’ BETTER BLUES Despite the fact that Do the Right Thing failed to inspire the predicted violence, Lee chose a lighter topic for his next film—a romance. The saga of a self-centered jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam, whose personal life plays second fiddle to his music, “Mo’ Better Blues is about relationships,” Lee explained to Ebony. “It’s not only about man-woman relationships, but about relationships in general—Bleek’s relationship to his father and his manager, and his relationship with two female friends. Bleek’s true love is music, and he is trying to find the right balance.” Bleek’s character was inspired by Lee’s jazz-musician father, Bill Lee, who wrote the film’s score. “Bleek is my father’s nickname,” Lee told People. The character’s dilemma—the need to temper the obsessive nature of the creative act—however, has universal relevance. That theme, Newsweek sug-

gested, is one with which the director himself can readily identify. Although recognized for its technical mastery and snappy score—partially the result of a $10 million budget— Mo’ Better Blues received tepid reviews. “The movie is all notions and no shape,” said the New Yorker, “hard, fierce blowing rather than real music.” And more than one critic took offense at Lee’s shallow treatment of female characters and ethnic stereotyping of Jewish jazz club owners Moe and Josh Flatbush.

EXAMINED INTERRACIAL LOVE IN JUNGLE FEVER tations. “You were curious about black … I was curious about white,” the architect explains when the couple parts ways. But Lee insisted in an interview with Newsweek that the film does not advocate separatism. The characters aren’t meant “to represent every interracial couple. This is just one couple that came together because of sexual mythology.” Although it received mixed reviews, Jungle Fever succeeded in whetting the appetite of Lee groupies for further controversy. Malcolm X, Lee’s pièce de résistance, satisfied even the most voracious.

Shot: Wesley Snipes, Jungle Fever (1991).

In his next film, Jungle Fever, Lee explored the theme of romance further — but this time, from a more provocative slant. Inspired by the 1989 murder of black teenager Yusuf Hawkins by a mob of Italian-American youths, Jungle Fever examines the sexual mythology that surrounds interracial romance. “Yusuf was killed because they thought he was the black boyfriend of one of the girls in the neighborhood,” Lee told Newsweek. “What it comes down to is that white males have problems with black men’s sexuality. It’s as plain and simple as that. They think we’ve got a hold on their women.” Jungle Fever looks at issues of race, class, and gender by focusing on community response to the office affair of a married, black architect and his Italian-American secretary. Lee concludes that interracial relationships are fueled by culturally based, stereotypical expec-

Shot: Director Spike Lee on location in Soweto, South Africa, during production of Malcolm X (1992).

MALCOLM X

Sparking controversy from the moment of its inception, the making of Malcolm X became a personal mission for Lee, who had long been an admirer of the legendary black leader. Vowing to cut no corners, Lee planned a biographical film of epic proportions that required months of research, numerous interviews, and even an unprecedented trip to Saudi Arabia for authentic footage of Malcolm’s pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca; taken shortly before his assassination in 1965, this journey that is said to have brought on a significant transformation in Malcolm’s ideology. The final product, a three-hour-and-21minute production, traces Malcolm X’s development from his impoverished, rural roots to his final years as an ever-evolving activist. “I knew this was going to be the toughest thing I ever did,” Lee told Time. “The film is huge in the canvas we had to cover and in the complexity of Malcolm X.” Lee fought tooth and nail to win the right to direct the film and to defend his vision of Malcolm X from the start. When he learned of plans by Warner Bros. to make Malcolm X, Norman

Jewison had already been chosen as its director. After Lee told the New York Times that he had a “big problem” with a white man directing the film, Jewison agreed to bow out. Lee, however, faced considerable resistance to his role as director of the film. Led by poet and activist Amiri Baraka (formerly Le Roi Jones), an ad hoc group that called itself the United Front to Preserve the Memory of Malcolm X and the Cultural Revolution voiced its opposition to Lee’s direction in an open letter. “Our distress about Spike’s making a film on Malcolm is based on our analysis of the [exploitative] films he has already made,” Ebony quoted the group as saying. But Lee’s spat with Baraka was only a momentary setback. He still had to deal with reworking an unsatisfactory script, which had been started by African American novelist James Baldwin shortly before his death and completed by writer Arnold Perl. And when Lee first locked horns with Warner Bros. over Malcolm X’s budget, he was bracing for another prolonged battle. Initially, the director had requested $40 million for

the film—an amount that was necessary, he claimed, in order to accurately portray all of the phases of his subject’s life. The studio countered with a $20-million offer, prompting Lee to raise an additional $8.5 million by selling foreign rights to the film, kick in a portion of his own $3-million salary, and, to make up the difference, acquire the backing of a host of black celebrities, including Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Janet Jackson, and Prince—much to the studio’s embarrassment. “It didn’t look good for Warner Bros. that Spike had to go to prominent African Americans to finish the movie,” noted Entertainment Weekly. When the film was completed, Barry Reardon, the studio’s president of distribution, conceded, “Spike did a fabulous job. He knows theaters, he’s very smart. This is Oscars all the way.” Although Malcolm X received no Oscars, the film played a significant role in the elevation of the black leader to mythic status; it also spawned a cultural phenomenon often referred to as “Malcolm-mania.” By the time the movie was released, its logo, a bold “X,” was

pasted on everything from a ubiquitous baseball cap to posters, postcards, and T-shirts. What’s more, a plethora of spin-off products was born, ranging from serious scholarly studies to a plastic Malcolm X doll, complete with podium and audio cassette. Promotional merchandise for the film was marketed by Lee himself through Spike’s Joint, a chain of stores that comprise a portion of the director’s growing business empire. Lee is quick to defend himself against charges of commercialism. In fact, he says, Malcolm X’s philosophy— that African Americans need to build their own economic base—is the mo-

tivation for his business investments. “I think we’ve done more to hold ourselves back than anybody,” Lee told Esquire. “If anybody’s seen all my films, I put most of the blame on our shoulders and say, ‘Look, we’re gonna have to do for ourselves.’ … I feel we really have to address our financial base as a people.”

LEE IS MARRIED In mid-1993 Lee began shooting his seventh feature film, Crooklyn, a comic tribute to his childhood memories of life in Brooklyn in the 1970s. He managed to take a break from filming, however, in order to marry Linette Lewis. Lewis, a lawyer, had been romantically linked to Lee for a year prior to their wedding. Crooklyn was released in 1994 to mixed reviews and a tepid reception at the box office. Lee fared far better in 1995 with his next film, Clockers, an adaptation of Richard Price’s inner-city novel. Clockers tells the story of two brothers who fall under suspicion of murder. One, a drug-dealer, was ordered to kill the victim by his supplier. The other, an upstanding family man, confesses to the crime, saying that he was attacked in the parking lot. On one level the movie unravels as a whodunit, yet ultimately the “who matters less than the why.” Ac-

cording to Richard Schickel of Time, “[Clockers] is more than a murder mystery … At its best, it is an intense and complex portrait of an urban landscape on which the movies’ gaze has not often fallen. Yes, this housing project is home to a feckless delinquent population. But it is also home to middle-class black families struggling to preserve their values.…”The film won outstanding reviews, with some criticsciting it as Lee’s best work. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Clockers is a work of staggering intelligence and emotional force—a mosaic of broken dreams.” Despite the positive critical reception, the film drew neither large audiences nor any Oscar nominations. In Girl 6, released in 1996, Lee returned to the theme of female sexuality. The movie features an aspiring actress, who becomes so fed up with movie executive

asking her for sexual favors, that she resorts to becoming a phone-sex worker in order to make ends meet. The screenplay was written by Suzan-Lori Parks, a respected African-American playwright. Despite her esteemed reputation, critics were disappointed with film’s lack of insight into the heroine’s character. Critical reception was lukewarm. Stanley Kauffmann of the New Republic wrote, “Lee directs with as close to total lack of conviction as I have seen in a director whose convictions have carried him over some rough spots in the past.” His next film, Get on the Bus, focuses on an eclectic group of African American men riding a bus on their way to the Million Man March in Washington D.C. The men include homosexuals, a mixed race policeman, a Republican, and both young and old men. They learn to overcome their differences as they unite for the march. Get on the Bus, despite its low turnout in movie theaters and criticism by some African Americans, succeeds in capturing the spirit of the Million Man March. In 1997 Lee released 4 Little Girls, a documentary about the bombing of a Bir-

mingham, Alabama church in 1963. A moving work about a hideous hate crime that claimed the lives of four young girls in their Sunday school, Lee interviewed family members as well as prominent spokespeople such as Coretta Scott King and Walter Cronkite in order to place the event in a broader context of American race relations. Lee’s innate ability to “do for himself,” his father suggested in an interview with Mother Jones, is the key to his success as a filmmaker. “Spike was kind of chosen,” he explained. “I think there was something spiritual about it. He inherited it from his family. [The ability] to make a statement.” Fellow filmmaker John Singleton, writing in Essence, said of Lee, “No other Black contemporary entertainer can claim to enlighten so many young Black people.” But, as he stated in the New York Times, Lee wants even more to prove “that an all-black film directed by a black person can still be universal.”

INTERVIEWS

JUNE

7, 1991

A DOZEN THINGS TO LEARN ABOUT SPIKE LEE

1. The Bulls will win it: “Michael Jordan said to me, there’s no guarantee they’re ever gonna make it back. So he guarantees this is gonna be the year.” 2. Why don’t your films do as well overseas? “Eddie Murphy’s not in them. The world market goes more for action. That’s why (Jean-Claude) Van Damme and (Steven) Seagal and (Arnold) Schwarzenegger are the biggest stars in the world. Movies that are about something are harder to translate into another language, but everybody understands action films. ” 3. He would like to make an action film himself someday, “but it would be an intelligent action picture, not just a bunch of car chases. I want to make all kinds of films. I’ve been painted into this box all of my films deal with racism, racism, racism. That’s not the case. ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ and ‘Mo’ Better Blues’ really didn’t deal with those things. I’m 34. I think I’m young. I’ve only made five films… I want to deal with a lot of things.” 4. A lot of audience members think his films are fair to both blacks and whites, but they don’t always agree on what they mean by that: “A lot of times it breaks down on racial lines. With ‘Do the Right Thing,’ the majority of white people told me Sal (the pizzeria owner) was the most sympathetic character, but black people didn’t necessarily see Sal the same way. They saw him as a racist exploiting people in Bed-Stuy (the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.). They identified more with Mookie (the character Lee played).”

5. The interracial romance between the two main characters in “Jungle Fever” -Wesley Snipes as an African-American architect and Annabella Sciorra as an Italian-American secretary- is not a good idea, “because their coming together is not based on genuine feelings. It’s based on sexual mythology.” 6. There is another potential interracial romance in the movie, between John Turturro (the luncheonette operator) and Tyra Ferrell (the sweet woman who stops in every day for her coffee and danish). Many viewers assumed that romance existed only in the head of the Turturro character, but Lee disagrees: “That’s gonna work, I feel, because they genuinely love each other.” 7. When people read what Lee said about racism and prejudice in his July Playboy magazine interview, “they might think I’m crazy.” In the interview, he said that although anybody can be prejudiced, only white people can be racist. “I said a distinction has to be made, because they’re not the same. Racism is an institution. For someone to be a racist, they have to have power behind them. Black people in this country have not been in that position. Black people have never had the power to put in the Constitution that white people are three-fifths of a human being, can be sold, can’t vote, can’t read, can’t intermarry, can’t live in this neighborhood. “For me, that’s what racism is. Anybody can be prejudiced. I don’t think any visible harm is done by name-calling. But we’ve never been in the position of being able to oppress people by government.”

8. All of those rich and famous celebrities obscure the real problems of black people in this country. “We’ve been lulled to sleep by the success of a few people. We have more black people living in an underclass now than ever before, even during the Depression. People say, ‘Things have to be getting better! You have Prince, Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, even Arsenio Hall! How can there be racism?’ But that has nothing to do with it. I bet the Klan watches Bill Cosby at 8 o’clock every Thursday night. “During the liberal-minded 1960s, when white people were introduced more to black culture, there was a theory that there’d be a lessening of the tensions. After Reagan and Bush, I don’t know if that’s true. Especially with the way Bush got elected with that Willie Horton thing.” 9. Lee will start shooting his new film, “Malcolm X,” in September. He’s been discussing the budget with Warner Bros., “but the film’s gonna get made by hook or crook, that’s the bottom line.” 10. “Yes, I’d like to get married and have five boys.” Five boys? Not five girls? “Well, I’m not gonna drown them, like other cultures do. Not gonna throw them back.” 11. The best thing about being Spike Lee is, he gets better season tickets for Knicks games. 12. The worst thing is, “I can’t be the entree for every single person who wants to work in film. I can’t help them all. I just can’t do it.”

JAN 28

8, 2016

ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON

There’s a moment about one-third of the way through Spike Lee’s new documentary Michael Jackson’s Journey From Motown to Off the Wall in which the Jackson estate’s archivist pulls out a yellowed, frayed letter and reads aloud. Written after Michael and his brothers, collectively known as the Jackson 5, had left Motown and were recording under the name the Jacksons, the future King of Pop is jotting down various aspirational goals: He wants to get into the movies, he wants to explore all musical styles and directions, he wants to be addressed from this point forward as “MJ.” And then, near the end of this free-form vision board in miniature, there’s a single sentence scrawled in the middle of the page: “I want to be the greatest entertainer of all time.” Mention this letter to Lee, and the director will let loose one of those loud Spike laughs that echoes off the walls of the Sundance press room he’s sitting in. “For most people, that concept might not be an attainable. But I think it’s safe to say that Michael reached his goals and then some.” By the time Thriller had turned the Gary, Indiana native into a global moonwalking phenomenon in the early Eighties, Jackson was the biggest musical star in the world. Before that, however, he had to break free from notions that he was part of “cartoon” act, go off on his own and make a solo album that would turn out to be a major turning point in late Seventies pop. Charting the boy-to-man arc that occurred between putting out singles like “ABC” and the release of his 1979 hit album Off the Wall, Journey shows exactly how that pimply-faced kid with the Afro and the angelic voice became the artist who’d record “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Working Day and Night,” “Rock With You” and “She’s Out of My Life.” And as did with Bad 25, which delved into Jackson’s 1987 album, Lee collects choice archival footage and testimonials from the singer’s collaborators, select family members, and public figures ranging from Pharrell Williams to Misty Copeland and Kobe Bryant to provide a 360-degree picture of how MJ made a classic. “We’re connecting the dots,” Lee says. “People have forgotten that, after all that other stuff, that Michael made great music. That’s a big part of why we made this movie. This is where it all really starts.”

You remember hearing that album growing up? Oh yeah, summer of 1979. I had finished Morehouse in May and was starting NYU’s graduate film school in September, but I was lucky enough to get an eight-week internship at Columbia Pictures between the two. So I was in Los Angeles when the album came out, and I mean, I’d hear it everywhere I’d go. When you listen to this album now, what do you hear? I still hear something that sounds like it was made yesterday. It doesn’t sound like a late-Seventies album; it still sounds fresh and

innovative. I hear a lot of what’s in music today, being worked out and recorded 35 years ago. Pharrell says it in the film: My music is directly influenced by this man and this album. Justin Timberlake says it! The Weeknd says it! You can hear a lot of Off the Wall in recent stuff. How did you pick folks to speak about Michael for the film? Folks like Pharrell and Questlove are no-brainers; Kobe Bryant showing up was a bit of a surprise. It proves that Michael’s influence was everywhere, not just in music but with athletes too. Game respects game! [Laughs]

“I’m telling you know, if I do end up doing [Thriller], I’m going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me!” When you started combing through the archives … I don’t want to talk about what we find, you’re going to give all our secrets away! People gotta watch to find out. But we can talk about that incredible letter you found, yes? Oh yeah, the letter that he writes that says he’s wants to become the greatest entertainer of all time! He’s already visualizing what he wants to do, who he wants to become … how’s he going to get to that point so he can become that person. You can see he had a blueprint, he had a plan even when he was young. It was not haphazard. It was not an accident. This shit was planned! Let’s be clear about one thing, though: He made that shit happen. There was no hocus pocus, abracadbra going on here; he worked his ass off to get to that level. Why do think he was so driven and such a perfectionist? Do you think that came from coming out of the Motown factory of hit makers? There were a lot of factors that played into it, I think. He had a strong work ethic, which he got from his dad — the man got up every morning and went to a steel mill to put food on the table for his 11 kids. And then he saw firsthand, when his dad worked all his sons and rehearsed them night and day, ran them through their steps, how hard work could pay off. Same with Berry Gordy and the Motown work ethic. But you gotta remember, he got to see some of the greatest artists of the day at work up close and perso-

nal: Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Diana Ross. Then he gets to go on the road and he’s standing in the wings at the Howard Theater, the Apollo Theater, and watching James Brown and Jackie Wilson perform. He saw all that firsthand. The kid was a human sponge! And when you fill in the gaps between “ABC” and Off the Wall, you see how he he took all of those influences and just synthesized them when he went solo. That’s what we’re trying to do: connect the dots. “The Journey from Motown to Off the Wall” — we called it that for a reason. It’s funny to hear people in the documentary saying that they didn’t think Quincy Jones would be the right person to produce the album — that he was too square and “jazzy.” As [songwriter] Kenny Gamble says in the movie, “A&R people … they don’t know!” [Laughs] There were people there that did not want him to make that album and thought he was the wrong fit — that’s a fact. But what’s funny is, after he made the album, absolutely no one was saying that! Then it was, hey Quincy, can you give us more of that Off the Wall sound? They worked well together, he and Michael. Three great albums, man. Some Jackson family members are conspicuous by their absence — were they opposed to you making this movie? There are just some issues between the estate and the family … that’s the bottom line. Everyone was

invited, and those who participated came on board. It really was as simple as that. You worked with Michael in the 1990s, right? In 1996, yeah — the “They Don’t Care About Us” videos, off the HIStory album. We did two of them, actually: We did the prison version and then we went to Brazil and did a version there. He was really wonderful to work with; these were some of the best times I’ve ever had on a set. It wasn’t like were best friends or anything, and I never saw him after we did those videos. But it was a great experience. He knew what he was doing. You’ve said you can still see a lot of joy in Michael as he’s working these songs out. Is it hard to watch some of this footage and not think about everything that comes after? It’s not hard for me; maybe it’s hard for you, but not for me! No disrespect, but we’re concentrating on a very specific period of his life. I’m not looking forward, I’m looking back. The whole point of the documentary, to me, was to just deal with the music, and not all that other stuff. I want to remind people that he made this incredible music, and tell them how he got there. I got to do it with Bad, I got to do it with Off the Wall — and hopefully, I’ll get to do it with Thriller! So are you going to do a doc on Thriller? That’s what I want to do. That’s the plan. I’ve gone on record as saying I’ll do it in a second. It’s just not all up to me.

There’s a lot of rich material to workwith — not just the music, but the way that album blew up, the Grammys appearance, the way he broke the color barrier on MTV… I’m telling you know, if I do end up doing it, I’m going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me! [Laughs] I wanna clear up the bullshit revisionist history that’s being spread around right now. What revisionist history, exactly? That there was no opposition to anyone at MTV playing Michael’s music. Have you seen that David Bowie clip that just resurfaced? No, seriously, have you seen it? I have, yeah. It’s amazing. He’s telling the truth. It’s not Spike Lee saying “MTV doesn’t play black people,” it’s David Bowie saying this! Listen to what that guy who’s interviewing him is saying, about having a certain demographic and what will play in America, all that. He’s just mouthing the party line; those were there talking points of the whole company. All those motherfuckers are full of shit, saying that they opened Michael’s videos with open arms! Who’s still saying that? It’s pretty much an established fact now that they didn’t want to play his videos, or videos by any black artists, at first … are people still disputing that story? They’re still saying they welcomed Michael Jackson with opens arms, yes, and it’s bullshit! We have that moment

in the Bad doc: [CBS Records CEO] Walter Yetnikoff called up the head of MTV at the time and told him “I’m taking every CBS artist off MTV unless you play this.” What’s the guy’s name? It’s Robert something. Google that shit right now. I’ll wait. [One quick Google search later] Robert Pittman. [yelling] Bob Pittman! That’s him! People on the wrong side of history are trying to rewrite history all the time. And I don’t care what people are saying now, Bob Pittman and MTV were on the wrong side of history! You don’t have to be David Bowie to know that.

JULY 2

25, 2018

IN THE ROOM

“First of all, I think that’s a stupid statement.” I’d made it halfway through the first question of my conversation with Spike Lee before he stepped in to set me straight. The statement in question was the opinion of some critics that the director and writer is “obsessed with race,” and he didn’t care to wait and see how I might contextualize the quote before responding with a sternness that knocked me back on my heels a bit. The topic of race has certainly pervaded Lee’s work throughout his thirty-year career, and has often been at the center of his many public controversies, including feuds with prominent filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino to Tyler Perry. But for anyone to accuse a man who is black—a fact that American society ensures will dominate his identity for life—of being obsessed... Let’s just say his indignation wasn’t unwarranted. Sitting in a back office at the Fort Greene headquarters of Spike’s production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, we discussed blackness, from its weight and influence in his youth to its notable absence in modern-day Hollywood boardrooms. If a single message emerged over the hour or so that we spoke, it’s that one can’t expect to understand a man, much less an entire race, by observing him from afar.

SPIKE LEE — Why would not a black person be obsessed with race, when his ancestors were stolen from mother Africa, brought here to build this country? I just find it very…amusing, when people say “Why are black people mad, or upset, or angry?” I think that if you put it into historical context, with all the shit that’s happened to us, we’re very calm! OFFICE — It’s hardly an obsession. SL — It’s not obsession. You’re reminded that you’re black every single day. When I can’t catch a motherfuckin’ cab in the morning, when their lights are on, and then they see me and turn the lights off, or when I say where I wanna go and they say “My shift is ending” and speed away… So as a black person you’re reminded every day that you’re black. Whether you wanna admit it or not. I love Jay’s new song, where he says “’I’m not black, I’m O.J.’…OK.” What Jay just did there, that’s amazing. So often there are African Americans who think that once they get some acclaim and status, then they’re no longer black—but sooner or later, they will be reminded. O — Can you remember the earliest moments in your youth, when you were reminded of your blackness? SL — Oh, yeah. I remember before our family bought our brownstone in Fort Greene, for $45,000 back in 1968, ’69, we lived in Cobble Hill. At that time it was a predominantly Italian-American neighborhood. I wanted to join the Boy

Scouts, and I was told I couldn’t join because I wasn’t Catholic. O — That’s a nice euphemism. SL — Yeah. So look it wasn’t a traumatic moment in my life, but just as an example of being reminded. We were the first black family to move into Cobble Hill, we lived in Crown Heights first, so me and my siblings got called nigger, but once they saw that there wasn’t a whole wave of black people coming behind the Lee’s, then we were alright. They got over that in like a month, but the first month they were like nigger this, nigger that. O — At that point did you have people in your life, parents or teachers, who were very vocal about issues of race? SL — My parents were woke. They would tell me and my siblings what was happening. So we were very aware of the world. I say this all the time, but I come from a generation where black parents told their children that they had to be ten times better than their white classmates. I would say, “Mommy, that’s not fair!” and she’d say “Fuck what’s fair, that’s just the way it is.” So we came up in a time where we were taught we had to excel. I would come home with a B on my test and be happy, and my mom would say “You know what? That’s not good enough, because I know your Jewish classmates are gettin’ an A+.” That’s the type of household I was in, where you were taught—again to quote Jay-Z what Jay calls black excellence. So that’s the era.

Mother and father at home, mom taught black literature at St. Ann’s in Booker Heights, my father was a jazz musician, but he started getting work as a top folk bassist, played with Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, Odetta. Puff the Magic Dragon, that’s my father on bass. There’s one album, the only instruments are Bob Dylan on guitar and my father on bass. When Bob Dylan started going electric my father stopped working, because he refused to play electric music. My mother wasn’t working, she was raising the kids, so she had to get a job. She started teaching at St. Ann’s because my father was not going to play electric bass, even though he had five kids. O — What do you think kept him from switching over to electric? SL — His values. As he called it, “tone as is.” Even when he played upright, he wouldn’t put a pickup on his bass. My mother wasn’t going to let us starve, so she had to work. All that is in Crooklyn, you ever see Crooklyn? O — Mhmm. SL — Well you see it again. O — And you lost your mother relatively young? SL — Yes, I was a sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

O — Do you feel that loss informed your work, or redirected your path at all at that point? SL — Hmm. I don’t know, I mean I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a filmmaker until the summer of 1977, the summer of the blackout. First summer of disco. The Summer of Sam, David Berkowitz. But my mother was the one—my father hated movies, but he loved sports. So my love of sports I got from my father, my love of movies came from my mother. My father did not like movies, so I was my mother’s movie date. My mother was the one that introduced me to Martin Scorsese, Mean Streets, DeNiro, Harvey Keitel. She was also the one, my mother was driving me and my siblings to Broadway plays instead of museums. We didn’t want to go, but we had no choice. It was great, because every time we would go kickin’ and cryin’, and at the end we’d say “That was good, Mommy.” So my mother understood at an early age that you never know what gifts your children might have, what might interest them, but you’re not going to find out unless they’re exposed to it. I remember going to see the Bye Bye Birdie. It’s funny how it works, because the opening sequence of Bye Bye Birdie, where Ann-Margret’s dancing, that’s where I got the idea for Rosie to dance in the beginning of Do the Right Thing—it’s different dancing, different music, but that’s where it came from. My mother taking me to see the Easter Sunday show of Bye Bye Birdie.

O — You referenced the summer of ’77, when you took footage of New York during the blackout on a camcorder SL — Camcorder?! No, no — Super 8. O — Super 8, sorry. But do you remember the feeling that inspired you to go out and document that? Was there a sense of urgency? SL — No. I mean, New York City was broke that summer. There’s a very famous front page of the Daily News, ford to city: drop dead! Ford being President Ford. So there were no jobs. I went over to a friend’s house one day during that summer, someone had just given her a Super 8 camera and a box of film, and she said “You can have it.” So I didn’t do that to be a filmmaker, there was just nothing else to do! I just did it to not be sitting on the stoop all summer. O — So what happened after that when you returned to Morehouse? SL — I declared my major. I went to Morehouse College but my major I took across the street at Clark College, which is now Clark Atlanta University. There was a teacher there, Dr. Herb Eichelberger, who was very instrumental in me being a filmmaker. I declared myself a mass communications major, which was film, television, journalism, radio…and something else. Dr. Eichelberger really pushed me to do something with that footage I shot over the summer. So I made this documentary about that summer,

which had the looting, the blackout, the block parties, DJ’s with their turntables and speakers. It’s called Last Hustle in Brooklyn. That first film was just something to do, and it sparked my interest. So after graduating from Morehouse in ’79, I got into NYU grad film school. But first I had a summer internship at Columbia Pictures in Burbank, California for eight weeks, I spent every week in a different department. O — Do you remember the films they were working on at that time? SL — I do remember …and justice for all., with Al Pacino. O — Was that the first time you witnessed that full Hollywood experience? I come from a generation where black parents told their children that they had to be ten times better than their white classmates. I would say, “Mommy, that’s not fair!” and she’d say “Fuck what’s fair, that’s just the way it is.” SL — Oh yeah, I’d never been on a lot before. Actually that was my first time in LA too. O — You like it out there in LA? SL — To visit, not to live. I take JetBlue, leave at 5:50 in the morning, get there at 8:30, and then I’m back on the redeye the same night. In and out. O — Speaking of Hollywood, I recently saw video of you speaking about Moon-

light’s win at last year’s Oscars, how you felt it was just a reaction to the previous year’s outcry over #OscarsSoWhite, and that attention on black actors and directors, and black stories in film, should be constant. But was part of you happy to see Moonlight win? SL — Oh, yeah. Here’s the thing though—I’m happy, but I don’t think it’s indication that the world has changed. I’d be much happier if a person of color was head of the studio, because that’s where the power is. That’s when you have power, when you’re in the room. When you’re the gatekeeper. Winning the Oscar, that’s not going to change the landscape. The landscape changes when we’re in the room. I mean, look at the fiasco of that Pepsi commercial. We weren’t in the room! Someone would’ve said, “You know what? This is a misappropriation of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is very serious subject matter. Black people are being shot down on video, the cops are walking free.” To trivialize that to sell soda? Come one now. We weren’t in the room! If there was somebody of color in the room, they weren’t woke. It just appalls me. The United States Census Bureau said by as early as the year 2035, 2040, that white America is going to be in the minority. There are studies that say the more diverse you are, the more profitable you will be. O — You connect with more people that way.

SL — Exactly. But here’s the thing though, it also means that your workforce should be diverse. They say “OK we’ll do that, we’ll market to those people, but we’re not going to have any of those people work with us.” But there are specific insights that you’re not going to know, and you have to have people in the room to teach you. To enlighten you. ‘Cause you just don’t know it all. Sorry, you just don’t know it all. O — Even with our magazine, it’s a new magazine, we feature a lot of black artists in our pages, and our masthead is predominantly white. It’s a constant conversation. SL — I appreciate you bringing that up. Because, you’ve gotta be about it, you can’t just talk about it. So if you talk all this stuff, wanna be diverse and all that, and then you go in your office… For years, when I would have my meetings in Hollywood, at the studios, the only black person I’d see was the brotherman at the gate, that would check my name off the list and pound me up, and that would be it. So for me, that is the next battle. We cannot get caught up on awards. In my opinion. The battle is to get in those positions where you can make a difference. Where you have a say. Where you have a vote that counts for whether this gets made, or this doesn’t get made. That’s where it is. Otherwise, all this stuff is trivial. It’s amazing, I still have these meetings, pitching stuff, and there’s nobody black in the room. You

might have a black secretary, but other than that, it’s totally white. Therefore, you see that vision played out in the programming. It’s like, is this 1917 instead of 2017? Do you understand that pretty soon white America’s gonna be the minority? Here’s the thing I’d also like to say—forget about it being the right thing to do. Alright? Forget about whether it’s righteous, let’s just go to the bottom line. You will make more money! Studies have shown. Fast and the Furious, everyone knows it’s the diversity of that cast that has made that series a juggernaut. That film would not have made that money if that cast was all white. O — What about subject matter as well though? Take a movie like Get Out, which was by all accounts a huge success. SL — That was some sneaky shit. O — Tell me what you mean by that. SL — That was the hidden ball trick, the misdirection. It was great. People thought they were getting one thing, and they got another thing. O — But that appealed to a wider crowd… SL — Nah, that appealed to a wider crowd because people thought they were coming to see a horror film, and they got a horror horror film. So it was a bait and switch, it was a fantastic move, where people thought they were seeing something, and they got a lot more.

That’s one of those films, you’ve gotta see it with a white audience, and see it with a black audience. It’s two totally different responses. Just the title, Get Out, you have to be black to understand that. Because historically, in horror films, the black character is always the first to get killed. That’s where the title comes from. We as a people speak to the screen, so we’re watching that movie and we’re like “GET THE FUCK OUT!” “DON’T GO IN THAT ROOM!” “WATCH OUT BEHIND THE DOOR!” Because we know we’re the first to get killed. So that’s the genius, using that call and response of black audiences calling out to the lone black character running in horror films, like “Get out! Don’t stay in that house, don’t go in that room, don’t open that door.” Because we know we’re always the first killed. The Shining. Scatman Cruthers, Jack Nicholson gives him a fuckin’ hatchet in the chest! So I think people aren’t even hip to the title. That’s where it comes from. There’s only one black person in the horror film, then you know he’s dying first. He’s dead! O — Do you think it can be a perilous thing when something like “wokeness” becomes a trend? SL — I don’t think it’s a trend, because I wouldn’t say black power was a trend. You could say that being “woke” is a reconfiguration of black power, from the ‘60s. I don’t think Black Lives Matters is a trend. What’s a trend is black people being shot, murdered, and cops getting away. That’s a trend. But you could also

say that’s always been happening, but people didn’t have their phones to record it. So I would say that. I would say it’s not a trend.

SL — Well, I gotta go over some stuff, do credits, make sure names are spelled right. And it looks like a nice summer day in New York.

O — Who are you looking at in the younger generation of filmmakers and artists that excites you right now?

— END

SL — I’m a teacher, I’m a tenured professor at NYU, so my students excite me. I always look out for young voices, and understand that it’s a continuum, it keeps going. My students are very enthusiastic, very dedicated. I try to instill a work ethic. It’s hard work, but I’ve always had this philosophy that if you love something it’s not really work. O — Do you consider yourself a workaholic? SL — Oh, yeah. O — That why you’re in here on a Saturday? SL — Yeah, we’re in the final stages of finishing She’s Gotta Have It for Netflix. O — Can you tell me a little bit about the project? SL — Well, She’s Gotta Have It was my first feature film, shot in twelve days in July of 1985. My wife was the one who gave me the idea to try and make it a series, the thought had never really occurred to me. O — So what’s on the docket today?

OCT 26

6, 2018

BLACKKKLANSMAN

Legendary director Spike Lee’s first film was 1985’s She’s Gotta Have It, but it was 1989’s Do the Right Thing That brought Lee an Academy Award nomination and mainstream notice. He has gone on to make multiple feature films that deal with a wide range of political issues. Lee often finds himself in the middle of controversy because of his films and outspoken opinions. His most recent work is BlacKkKlansman, based on the memoir of an African-American police detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan.

Screen Rant — Although this film takes place in the 1970s, the movie feels extraordinarily contemporary. How did you make the film feel modern, yet authentic? In what ways did the contemporary feel help you focus in on your message? Spike Lee — Well that’s something that my co-writer, Kevin Willmott and I, decided that we were going to do from the get-go. We wanted to make this a hip, period film. A period film that’s still contemporary. So we just did our thing... and it worked... I mean, Charlottesville, that’s not in the script...Charlottesville happened while we were still in pre-production. SR — Really? SL — Yes. SR — So I know that Charlottesville is in the film, but had there been other things that happened since, would that have been included as well? SL — If there is one image that I would include, it would be at the border and seeing infants being snatched out of their mother’s hands. Mothers screaming. Infants screaming. Crying. Hysteria. And no one thought, “What information shall we take so we may some time reunite mother to son, or daughter? Infant to parent.” And I don’t have the exact number, there’s still one thousand kids that can’t be identified. How do you implement a program...? I don’t want to say this, but that makes me think about slavery. My wife automatically thought

about our ancestors being separated, broken apart, sold. And what this guy did to these families is not much different. For me, that’s a criminal act, to separate, snatch infants out of their mother’s clutches. With nothing put in place information wise, identification wise, so families can be reunited. Who does that? That’s some foul shit right there. It’s horrible... But when you think about it. What did he say? “They’re all rapists! They’re drug dealers! He was talking about Mexicans specifically now. But it’s not all Mexicans coming across the border. It’s...this crazy Looney Tunes times... SR — It sure is. It really is... Every few years there is a movie that holds the door open for other movies. Your producer specifically said that BlacKkKlansman was made possible because of the success of Get Out. What kind of impact do you feel that film had socially and on the film industry? And do you think that is helped your success for this film? SL — I love my brother Jordan Peele. I’m happy for the success of Get Out. But, this film didn’t cost that much so... For me, the film that changed the game is Black Panther. For me, I’m talking about... Here’s the thing. When you’re a black director and trying to get a film made with a studio, the way it always went the okie doke was when the line item came to foreign. Historically, they said, “Well we can’t give you that much for the budget because historically black films don’t make any money overseas.” Then when Denzel [Washington], Will [Smith], and Sam [Jackson], started selling overseas

then they move the goal line further and said, “Well, there are stars are in it. If you don’t have any stars in the film you’re not going to make any foreign.” Black Panther...there were no stars in that film. Prior to the film. Now they move the goal line further, “Well, that’s a Marvel comic book.” It’s shenanigans... For me, that was always used against me, why I couldn’t get more money for my films. Because they always but zero, little money in the line item for foreign. And it’s been proven that Black folks can travel, you know? And people go see our films. So that’s the next thing, you know? SR — Speaking of Black Panther, there’s rumors that you’ve been circling a movie called for Sony called Nightwatch, which is another superhero film... SL — Nah. SR — No? Okay. Good, we can move on from that. You’ve mentioned that you immediately thought of John David [Washington] for the part. What was it about him that gave you confidence that he can embody the role? SL — Well, I saw him act in Malcolm X when he was six years old...He was one of the kids who says, “My name is Malcolm X.” But seriously I saw him in Ballers... SR — I love Ballers yeah. SL — I saw him play football at Morehouse. [Laughs] And I like the saying... for something to become a cliche, it had

to be a truth first. So the cliche that I would use now is that the fruit does not fall far from the tree. That’s not a cliche, that’s the truth with John David Washington, the son of Pauletta and Denzel Washington. SR — Awesome. SL — And I just knew. I mean...I offered him the part. He did not have to audition and do nothing. Just show up... Just accept it. SR — One of the more interesting subplots of the film was they dynamic between Ron and Patrice, when they’re both living their truth as a policeman and a civil rights activist. Can you explain the friction and talk about this dynamic in the communities that are surely familiar to many of the viewers? SL — Well this tension that you talk about my brother. Goes way back. We can go back to W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm, Kwame Toure, Dr. Martin Luther King, there has always been this friction, tension about which is the best way for us as a people to move forward? Is it best for us to work within the system? Can we do more outside of the system? I mean, I remember...several times seeing footage or reading where Malcolm said lke Dr. King should thank me because they rather deal with him than deal with me. But, let’s go back to the ending of Do the Right Thing, where we had the two quotes by Malcolm and Dr. King and many people got that stuff twisted and thought that I was saying that

there is an either or. Both Malcolm and Dr. King were moving towards finding common ground. And I love sports, so I will use a football analogy. You gotta have a ground game and you gotta be able to throw the ball...For me, anything that works in this universe, there has to be a balance. If you got one not the other, your balancing ain’t going to work. So, as long as people are committed to the same goal. There’s many different routes to get there. So that’s why I thought it was key to put that scene in there. We have Patrice who is based upon...Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver. To show that friction. That tension. Sometimes it’s good to have tension and friction because they bump into each and shit gets hot and you move forward. No it was very important to have that scene and that is why at the end of the movie she says, “I can not sleep with the enemy...We might have a thing and I love you but you’re...” Earlier in the film she called him a “pig,” you know so.... SR — From the subject matter to the film’s title, the project had society’s odds stacked against it, however it proved to be one of the most successful releases of the year. Aside from the high production quality, why do you think that audiences and critics were so receptive to BlacKkKlansmen? SL — Hmmm... I think it was the craftsmanship in the storytelling and how people were coming to see a film...a true story that took place in the mid-70s, but at the same time was contemporary. And that was a goal that, Kevin Willmott...

my co-writer on the script. That was our goal. To make a hip, period film that resonated with the crazy world that we live in today...What really cemented that was the tragedy of homegrown terrorism and the death of Heather Heyer and Ms. Susan Bro losing her daughter. It was nothing but a plain act of homemade, homegrown American terrorism. And that speaks to the fake narrative that Americans are fed day by day. When you hear the word terrorism you always automatically think that it has to be something Muslim related. Which is a false narrative. It’s false. It’s a lie. More acts of terrorism are committed by Americans on American soil than any other group. Muslim or not. That’s the real narrative, but that’s not the story, that’s not the narrative that they want people to hear, the American public. SR — When did you first find out about this story being a true story and when did you want to start adapting this? Spike Lee: Well I never heard anything about this until Jordan Peele called me and pitched it to me. SR — Really? Spike Lee: I did know of, or had never heard of, Ron Stallworth. It was completely new. SR — By the way I get told that I look like Jordan Peele a lot. Just saying... Spike Lee: I see a resemblance. He ask you for money? [Laughs] SR — You opened up many people’s eyes to the horrors of Hurricane Katrina with

When the Levees Broke...

SR — I hope it’s Idris Elba personally.

SL — Levees

SL — What did he say?

SR — Yes, Levees Broke. Have you considered doing a follow-up with the largely uncovered humanitarian disaster that has..

SR — I don’t know. I haven’t asked him.

SL — Well we did the follow-up to Katrina and it’s called... If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise.

SR — I think he said he would do if he was asked? So Spike, can we get a...

SR — Okay. Well, I was going to ask more about the happenings in Puerto Rico post this year, if you were thinking about doing anything with that? SL: Well, that’s going to be a segment of the second season of She’s Gotta Have It. Shhhh... SR — Spoiler alert... Now, I know that... obviously I talked about that rumor with Nightwatch but I know that you have had a heavy influence by being a fan of James Bond and Bruce Lee... SL — Since I was a kid! SR — Yes, since you were a kid. Have you ever considered doing like one of those superhero movies and kind of infusing more of some of those styles in there...some Bruce Lee maybe. I would love to see you direct a James Bond movie to be honest with you. SL — Who’s playing James Bond?

SL — Has he spoken publicly on it?

SL — I mean they just got...they just moved away from Danny Boyle so... All I know is...my James Bond is Sean Connery. SR — Yeah? I’m a Timothy Dalton guy but... SL — You’re younger than me! You weren’t born when Thunderball, Dr. No, From Russia With Love. Sean Connery is a bad m********er! [Laughs] SR — Well I appreciate it. Thank you for your time Mr. Lee. Pleasure to meet you.

FEB 15

5, 2019

When Bob Dylan decided that he wanted to go electric, everybody else in the folk world did, too. And so my father, to this day, has never played one Fender bass or one electric instrument ever. Up to that point, my mother didn’t have to work ‘cause my father was most - he was in demand. But when he made the decision that he was not going to play electric bass, my mother had to become a teacher. You know, in a lot of ways, I looked at my father’s integrity. But on the other hand, he had five kids. But to him, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to play electric bass.”

HIS FATHER

“Oh. Well, I learned that there’s nothing poetic about being a starving artist. I knew that. And I knew that - one of the greatest lines from “The Godfather” - I wanted to wet my beak. If my films made money, I wanted to be able to get my fair share of the money that’s being made from my artwork. I just saw my father struggle - great, great, great musician - that there’s nothing cute about being poor. At one time, my father was a leading jazz bassist - jazz folk bass - played Bob Dylan, Judy Collins. That’s my father on Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff The Magic Dragon” Theo Bikel, Odetta, all those things.

“I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen. A lot of times, an opportunity might fall into your lap, but you have to be ready for that opportunity. You can’t sit there waiting on it. A lot of times you are going to have to get out there and make it happen.”

BIOGRAPHY Facts Pursued film career Scored a surprise hit with sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gotta have it School daze: a microcosm of black life Explored racial tension in do the right thing Striking a balance moâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; better blues Examined interracial love in jungle fever Malcolm X Lee is married

8 10 12 14 17 19 20 23 26

INTERVIEWS 32 38 47 58 67

June 7, 1991

A dozen things to learn about spike lee

Jan 28, 2016

About Michael Jackson

July 25, 2018 In the room

Oct 26, 2018 Blackkklansman

Feb 15, 2019 His father