Do The Right Thing. (15.)
Directed by Spike Lee. 1989
Starring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Paul Benjamin, Frankie Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Miguel Sandoval, Rick Aiello, John Savage, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, Martin Lawrence, Frank Vincent. 115 mins. Out on a two-disc Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection.
30 years, where did they go? And can we get them back to do-over? The idea that something so vibrant, so energetic, so strident as Do The Right Thing could ever become historical seems like an affront, but it happens: even anger gets old. Spike Lee's third film established him as a major filmmaker and was an incendiary view on race relation; one that seems to have blown up in all our faces.
“It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something or you can do the right thing.” As the temperature in a street in Brooklyn tops 100 tensions rise, and their focus becomes Sal's pizzeria, an Italian American establishment run by Aiello, and a proposal that it be boycotted until some pictures of black faces are put up on the wall celebrating Italian American figures.
For the most part, the film is just as compelling as it was back then. The vibrant colour in Ernest Dickerson's cinematography, the power of the soundtrack, the range of characters and invention in Lee's screenplay and direction still have a joyous spring to them. When he was on it, few filmmakers could marshal the possibilities of cinema as effectively as him. The talking straight to camera, the heightened reality of the colours scheme would have seemed showy or trying too hard with anyone else but fell naturally into place here. Seeing this when it came out in 1989 I have to admit the thrill of the film making made more impression than the specific questions on race it addressed.
Seen today, I picked up a kind of hysteria to it. It may not be the sweariest film ever – though it averages two f***s or motherf***ers a minute so it's setting a Scorsese pace – but they may be the loudest, most in your face profanities in an American movie; the level of aggression is constant. All the little Shakespearian touches – having a fool (Roger Guenveur Smith), the mini soliloquy, the tragic plotting – that looked daring back then now come across as being a touch manipulative. It's like a socially aware Punch and Judy show.
Lee's script has characters from either extreme (Sal's son played by Turturro; Nunn's Radio Raheem and Esposito's Buggin Out) and some who are trying to coexist in the middle, primarily Sal and Lee's character Mookie, the delivery man for the pizzeria. There's a broad and rich selection of humanity is presented here – except for the Korean convenience store owners who are just shouty me-speaky-Ingrish-velly-good caricatures and who are just a bit racist. Or lacist.
The film is framed as a discussion of the competing doctrines of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, between non-violence and violence, integration and separation. I imagine most of you will know how it all ends up, whether King or X triumphs and will have considered if the right thing was done. Having skimmed through the abundance of supporting features this 2 disc Criterion release offers, I think Lee often doesn't play fair, strawmans his arguments. For example, Spoilers, going through contemporary reviews on its release – which I remember being mostly raves - Lee is angered that white reviewers focus more of the destruction of Sal's pizzeria than Radio Raheem being killed by the cops. But the way his screenplay is structured Mookie throwing the garbage can through the window is the film's climactic moment. All NYPD are shown as being piggy eyed racists so these marionettes doing exactly what you have prepared the audience for them to do, carries much less dramatic weight than Mookie's action and the morality of his choice. It's the title of the film, after all. Lee says Sal is ultimately a racist because he refers to his clientèle as “These people” and when provoked uses the n-word. And I'm sure he is, but the evidence of the film is that he's been trying to make himself better, trying to do the right thing. But it wasn't quick enough so f*** him and f*** his livelihood.
It helped start a discussion on race all right, so much so that it seems like we talk about nothing else, that identity politics has somehow supplanted the issue of the vast inequalities that should be bringing us all together.
When that nice Mr Poitier was making films, the message was that we were all the same under the skin. Now the message is that we are all different. These days we are more attuned to dog whistles and I think it's fair to tentatively suggest that Lee's films have been pushing a separatist line. It's the message here, and in Jungle Fever where the inter-racial relationship between Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra is based on curiosity rather than real feelings.
Like Tony Soprano's mother, there's no winning with Lee. He'll never be happy and there are a lot of things for him to never be happy about, but if you never cut anybody slack, if any small advance is just the stepping stone to another grievance, then there comes a point where you stop trying. Do The Right Thing is a landmark film, and a landmark film on race. But it is just a film, a small part of a greater process. Still, I can't help but wonder, with a President that is his mirror image and confirms all his worst fears about what white people are like, if he's happy now.
Extras.
Audio commentary from 1995 featuring director Spike Lee, Dickerson, production designer Wynn Thomas, and actor Joie Lee
Directed by Spike Lee. 1989
Starring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Paul Benjamin, Frankie Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Miguel Sandoval, Rick Aiello, John Savage, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, Martin Lawrence, Frank Vincent. 115 mins. Out on a two-disc Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection.
30 years, where did they go? And can we get them back to do-over? The idea that something so vibrant, so energetic, so strident as Do The Right Thing could ever become historical seems like an affront, but it happens: even anger gets old. Spike Lee's third film established him as a major filmmaker and was an incendiary view on race relation; one that seems to have blown up in all our faces.
“It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something or you can do the right thing.” As the temperature in a street in Brooklyn tops 100 tensions rise, and their focus becomes Sal's pizzeria, an Italian American establishment run by Aiello, and a proposal that it be boycotted until some pictures of black faces are put up on the wall celebrating Italian American figures.
For the most part, the film is just as compelling as it was back then. The vibrant colour in Ernest Dickerson's cinematography, the power of the soundtrack, the range of characters and invention in Lee's screenplay and direction still have a joyous spring to them. When he was on it, few filmmakers could marshal the possibilities of cinema as effectively as him. The talking straight to camera, the heightened reality of the colours scheme would have seemed showy or trying too hard with anyone else but fell naturally into place here. Seeing this when it came out in 1989 I have to admit the thrill of the film making made more impression than the specific questions on race it addressed.
Seen today, I picked up a kind of hysteria to it. It may not be the sweariest film ever – though it averages two f***s or motherf***ers a minute so it's setting a Scorsese pace – but they may be the loudest, most in your face profanities in an American movie; the level of aggression is constant. All the little Shakespearian touches – having a fool (Roger Guenveur Smith), the mini soliloquy, the tragic plotting – that looked daring back then now come across as being a touch manipulative. It's like a socially aware Punch and Judy show.
Lee's script has characters from either extreme (Sal's son played by Turturro; Nunn's Radio Raheem and Esposito's Buggin Out) and some who are trying to coexist in the middle, primarily Sal and Lee's character Mookie, the delivery man for the pizzeria. There's a broad and rich selection of humanity is presented here – except for the Korean convenience store owners who are just shouty me-speaky-Ingrish-velly-good caricatures and who are just a bit racist. Or lacist.
The film is framed as a discussion of the competing doctrines of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, between non-violence and violence, integration and separation. I imagine most of you will know how it all ends up, whether King or X triumphs and will have considered if the right thing was done. Having skimmed through the abundance of supporting features this 2 disc Criterion release offers, I think Lee often doesn't play fair, strawmans his arguments. For example, Spoilers, going through contemporary reviews on its release – which I remember being mostly raves - Lee is angered that white reviewers focus more of the destruction of Sal's pizzeria than Radio Raheem being killed by the cops. But the way his screenplay is structured Mookie throwing the garbage can through the window is the film's climactic moment. All NYPD are shown as being piggy eyed racists so these marionettes doing exactly what you have prepared the audience for them to do, carries much less dramatic weight than Mookie's action and the morality of his choice. It's the title of the film, after all. Lee says Sal is ultimately a racist because he refers to his clientèle as “These people” and when provoked uses the n-word. And I'm sure he is, but the evidence of the film is that he's been trying to make himself better, trying to do the right thing. But it wasn't quick enough so f*** him and f*** his livelihood.
It helped start a discussion on race all right, so much so that it seems like we talk about nothing else, that identity politics has somehow supplanted the issue of the vast inequalities that should be bringing us all together.
When that nice Mr Poitier was making films, the message was that we were all the same under the skin. Now the message is that we are all different. These days we are more attuned to dog whistles and I think it's fair to tentatively suggest that Lee's films have been pushing a separatist line. It's the message here, and in Jungle Fever where the inter-racial relationship between Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra is based on curiosity rather than real feelings.
Like Tony Soprano's mother, there's no winning with Lee. He'll never be happy and there are a lot of things for him to never be happy about, but if you never cut anybody slack, if any small advance is just the stepping stone to another grievance, then there comes a point where you stop trying. Do The Right Thing is a landmark film, and a landmark film on race. But it is just a film, a small part of a greater process. Still, I can't help but wonder, with a President that is his mirror image and confirms all his worst fears about what white people are like, if he's happy now.
Extras.
Audio commentary from 1995 featuring director Spike Lee, Dickerson, production designer Wynn Thomas, and actor Joie Lee
- Introductions by Lee
- Making “Do the Right Thing,” a documentary from 1989 by St. Clair Bourne, in a new 2K digital transfer
- New interviews with costume designer Ruth E. Carter, New York City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr., writer Nelson George, and filmmaker Darnell Martin
- Three programs from 2000 and 2009, featuring Lee and cast and crew members Barry Alexander Brown, Chuck D, Dickerson, Richard Edson, Frankie Faison, Jon Kilik, Kevin Ladson, Steve Park, Rosie Perez, Luis Ramos, Monty Ross, John Savage, Roger Guenveur Smith, and John Turturro
- Music video for Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” directed by Lee, with remarks from rapper Chuck D
- Cannes Film Festival press conference from 1989 featuring Lee along with actors Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Edson, and Joie Lee
- Behind-the-scenes footage
- Deleted and extended scenes
- Original storyboards, trailer, and TV spots
- PLUS: An essay by critic Vinson Cunningham and (on the Blu-ray) extensive excerpts from the journal Lee kept during the preparation for and production of the film
