Lee's script marshals a rich cast of supporting characters, chief among them Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), who paces the streets, blaring Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on a never-ending loop at full volume, and Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), the would-be revolutionary who sits down that afternoon to eat his slice and suddenly notices that the "Wall of Fame" in Sal's Pizzeria is inhabited only by Italian-Americans (Sinatra, DiMaggio, DeNiro, Pacino). He asks why "there aren't any brothers on the wall." Sal replies, not unreasonably, that it's his place, and when Buggin' Out gets his own place, he can put whoever he wants on his wall. Buggin' Out retorts, also sensibly, that there aren't a lot of Italian-Americans buying pizza in Sal's joint, so maybe the wall of fame should include some black folks. ("Two valid points," Lee maintains, on a recent audio commentary.) And with that conversation, and the minor confrontation that follows, a slow fuse is lit that, by the end of the day, will explode in violence.
The way that Lee handles that scene shows the even-handedness of his writing and directing. Neither Sal nor Buggin' Out are obviously right or obviously wrong, and Lee refuses to do his audience's thinking for them. Much is made in the film's DVD supplemental materials of Lee and Aiello's disagreement over a fundamental fact about the character of Sal: whether or not he is a racist. Lee thinks yes, Aiello thinks no, but that's the beauty of the picture—it allows room for us to go either way, and that disagreement may, in part, be one of the reasons Sal is such a fascinating, complex character.
But these characters aren't just about prejudices. What is most remarkable about Do the Right Thing is how finely shaded each and every important character is, and how all of those shadings come into play by the time the film reaches its breathless conclusion. At the end of the day, Buggin' Out returns to Sal's Pizzeria with Radio Raheem and Smiley in tow, the boom box at full blast, the sounds of "Fight the Power" filling the tiny restaurant. Buggin' Out and Raheem want "brothers on the wall," and Sal wants them to "turn that shit down." Tempers flare and harsh words are exchanged; Sal loses his cool, pulls out his Louisville Slugger, screams epithets at them, and smashes the boom box to smithereens. A full-scale brawl breaks out in the pizzeria, which spills out onto the street. Police are called—and, of course, the NYPD goes right for the two young black men.
Radio Raheem is subjected to what Lee calls the "Michael Stewart choke hold"—alluding to the 1983 death of graffiti artist Stewart while in police custody. Raheem falls to the Bed-Stuy pavement, dead; he's tossed into a police cruiser, as is Buggin' Out. The police flee the scene, leaving the angry crowd fuming at Sal and his sons. As tensions come to a boil, Mookie picks up a garbage can and heaves it through the plate glass window of Sal's Famous Pizzeria. The angry mob descends on the restaurant, smashing glass, tearing the joint to pieces, and setting it afire. Sal and his sons watch, stunned (Sal: "That's my fuckin' place." Pino: "Fuckin' niggers"). Police return, along with fire trucks. The crowd, chanting "Coward Beach" (another historical allusion, to a 1986 race clash in Howard Beach, Queens that left one young black man dead and two more injured) won't disperse, in spite of police warnings. So the fire department turns the hoses on the black residents, Lee deliberately echoing the most iconic imagery of the civil rights movement.
The question a lot of people ask about the film, to this very day, is in regards to the climax: "Did Mookie do the right thing?" Then and now, it's a silly question—of course he didn't. But why is he singled out? (Probably because he incites the destruction of white-owned property, but that's another discussion.) In the broad scope of the film, nobody does the right thing: not Mookie, not Sal, not Buggin' Out, and certainly not the NYPD. In the blistering heat of that Brooklyn sun, people who are basically good do the wrong things at the wrong moment—and we believe all of it, that all of them would act that way right then, because they seem real people, and their tenuous character flaws have been so subtly but effectively teed up. "I believe that any good-hearted person, white or black, will come out of this movie with sympathy for all of the characters," Ebert wrote, when the film was released. "Lee does not ask us to forgive them, or even to understand everything they do, but he wants us to identify with their fears and frustrations. Do The Right Thing doesn't ask its audiences to choose sides; it is scrupulously fair to both sides, in a story where it is our society itself that is not fair."
by Jason Bailey, The Atlantic | Read more:
