Spike Lee Ages Well?

Fly Brother at 4:07 PM on 09/13/08:

Man, I showed School Daze to my university students here in Colombia, and even with a 20-minute presentation on the history of HBCUs, intra-racial conflict, fraternities and sororities, and college revolutionaries, it was a complete and utter flop. Drumline, with the same 20-minute intro, was much better received by my students and I now use that in US culture classes that I teach. I think it’s the combination of Spike’s trailblazing path in Hollywood and how much of ourselves we do see in his (earlier) films that earns them a permanent place on my DVD shelf, in spite of having cracked open Jungle Fever maybe once since purchasing it three years ago.

Renting 25th Hour tonight.

MML at 10:12 PM on 09/13/08:

that’s what it all boils down to, fly brother: how much of ourselves we see in spike’s work. i love it all (my least favorite maybe being ‘she hate me’), but i had a hard time deciding which of his movies i wanted to see in the retrospective. like, ‘mo’ better blues’… again? it’s one of the greatest modern black love stories on film, but don’t i love it just as much because i used to own the willi wear shirt that giant wore when he got beat up in the alley, or because bleek names his son ‘miles’ at the end?

dnyree at 12:42 AM on 09/14/08:

25th Hour is one of my absolute favorite Spike Lee Joints. Mo’ Better, I happened to have only seen this year for the first time… I felt like I needed to watch it again when it was over because the movie was so steeped in the time frame that it was made. Most of Spike’s films seem like period pieces, even when they are not. I think that’s what makes them classic… however I could see a group of students now looking at them like “meh, so what?”

MML at 2:25 PM on 09/14/08:

so interesting too, dnyree, that something like ‘school daze’ should go over the heads of today’s student body. are there SO many black films now that ‘school daze’ can be taken for granted? given the body of spike’s films, it’s not the greatest, but still. it’s funny as well that spike’s ‘white’ movies (‘25th hour’, ‘summer of sam’) should be among his very best.

Michael Gillespie at 2:00 AM on 09/15/08:

Hey. Love the website. Just wanted to point that Doyle is headed Upstate on the interstate, not out West. Love the ambiguity of the scene, but the signs don’t lie.

MML at 2:21 AM on 09/15/08:

no doubt, michael. the ending was total fantasy. woulda been nice though.

Sara at 3:52 PM on 09/15/08:

Perhaps I’m wrong, and I’ll admit I haven’t seen Clockers yet, but Speech, as in Speech from Arrested Development?

I am in my 20s, so, much of Spike Lee is still a learning process. I’m working my way through his films.

MML at 8:38 AM on 09/16/08:

hi sara! yes, speech from arrested development. your dollar’s in the mail! (ha)

if you’re just learning spike, i’d suggest 1. ‘do the right thing’, 2. ‘malcolm x’, 3. ‘clockers’, 4. ‘summer of sam’ and 5. ‘25th hour’. extra credit: ‘she’s gotta have it’, ‘when the levees broke’ and ‘girl 6’.

Del Hornbuckle at 11:46 AM on 09/17/08:

Beautifully written, Miles:) I share some special memories of Spike’s oeuvre and understanding how amazing it feels when one or two flicks captures a point in time and key moments.

And I agree, I can’t often watch his films repeatedly but there are some showstoppin’ moments: Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis’ presence in Jungle Fever; Ruby Dee in the kitchen clapping her hands….; Riddle solved in School Daze: “Pass the Pussy!”; German Actor David Bennent, the little boy from the masterpiece, The Tin Drum, in the god-awful She Hate Me; and lord yes, one of his best, Clockers—the soundtrack and the much-underrated Regina Taylor….

MML at 12:19 PM on 09/17/08:

thanks del. mos def, ‘she hate me’ was the weakest. to your showstoppin moments, i would add: the college dorm threesome in ‘he got game’ (why not?); the sex scene to miles davis’s ‘all blues’ in ‘mo’ better blues’; the down-south interlude from ‘crooklyn’, filmed in widescreen without adjusting the images; all that, all that…

Del Hornbuckle at 4:10 PM on 09/17/08:

Word:)
Yes…yes…Mo’ Better Blues AND Do The Right Thing….in every cinema class I’ve enjoyed those two are referred to for his excellent use of color and lighting to capture a mood and set a tone….

Got a fav director??

MML at 4:31 PM on 09/17/08:

he’s dead: stanley kubrick.

(alive? maybe paul thomas anderson…)

Cherie B at 1:52 AM on 09/18/08:

Interesting. I think that Spike has a real talent to hit a vein with his viewers on “real” experiences, in particular with his black audience. He’s got the psychographics down to a science. “She’s Gotta Have It” is a movie that always takes me back to a specific two year period of my life. Definitely still relevant to so many young black women (I ran the made up statistics in my head, haha). I never thought about it, but perhaps this is why it’s hard for me to rent it or watch the film in its entirety if I happen to catch it on tv. It easily brings me back to those hysterical laughs, bouts of confusion and tears. Even still, I’ve now grown out of that phase and don’t want to go back there. Much love to Spike. I’m looking forward to more of his work. He taped the entire closing night of “Passing Strange” on Broadway last month and has been involved with Obama’s campaign, so I’m sure his works in the making will be all the more intriguing, touching, and contemporary.

MML at 8:32 AM on 09/18/08:

‘psychographics’, i like that, cherie. hope you’re enjoying paris. we’ll have to talk more face-to-face about your personal connection to ‘she’s gotta have it’. for me, it’s probably ‘mo’ better blues’. that whole ‘i like women’ attitude of denzel’s was me all day in my 20s. as for the future, my dream spike lee project is a jimi hendrix biopic starring andré 3000, with a soundtrack of hendrix covers by prince. never gonna get it?

Brian at 9:27 PM on 09/20/08:

Randy Weston often talked to me about James Reese Europe and the effect him leaving to fight in WW1
had on the music scene in NYC. Basically all the musicians signed up to go with him cause that was where all
the work was headed. They fought during the day and played music for the French at night. Part of France’s love affair with jazz has to do with them being introduced to the real thing early on, but also because they were so
demoralized by the time the US joined the war, to have these BLack musicians fight like mad for them during the day and then blow them away at night was all too much for many a Frenchman and woman. Reese Europe had so
many musicians working in NYC, that when he died many argued that that was the day that jazz died.

don at 2:49 AM on 09/26/08:

The first time I watched the movie 25th Hour, I was taken aback at how different the movie was, from other Spike Lee joints. I didn’t expect for the plot to be as thoroughly appealing as it was. Not saying that Spike doesn’t have his cinematic gift – both Inside Man and Man of Fire were incredible, but I’d always figure Spike to add a little unorthodox flavor into the mix.

On that note, I’m very disappointed there will no School Daze 2.