Last weekend was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of Spike Lee’s 1989 Brooklyn masterpiece, “Do the Right Thing.” The movie was celebrated all over the country: in Los Angeles, with a screening at LACMA and a panel moderated by John Singleton; in the White House, where Barack and Michelle Obama recorded a video greeting to Lee, in praise of the movie they’d seen on their first date (” ‘Do the Right Thing’ still holds up a mirror to our society, and it makes us laugh and think, and challenges all of us to see ourselves in one another,” Obama said); with a party in Bed-Stuy, on the block where the film was shot, recently renamed Do the Right Thing Way, featuring Lee, Dave Chappelle, Chuck D, and thousands of fans; and at BAM, which concluded BAMcinemaFest with a sold-out screening and a panel of cast and crew members. An all-ages Brooklyn crowd showed up to the Harvey Theatre on Sunday, wearing sundresses and suits and caps and red BOYCOTT SAL’S T-shirts.
“Do the Right Thing,” about a day in the life of a Bed-Stuy neighborhood on the hottest day of the year, starts with its heroes waking up and ends the next morning, after a night that includes a fight, police brutality that ends in murder, and a riot. The movie was controversial when it came out—some publicly speculated that it would ignite violence—but, as in the character Radio Raheem’s monologue about his LOVE-HATE set of brass knuckles, love won. “Do the Right Thing” reignited interest in Malcolm X and encouraged a broader cultural reappraisal of his ideas; it inspired independent filmmakers; it made a zillion teen-agers into Public Enemy fans. But it didn’t get much love from the Academy. Though Lee was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Danny Aiello was nominated for Best Actor, the film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture—and, in a detail that Lee found especially painful, that honor went to “Driving Miss Daisy.” (Public Enemy razzed “Daisy” in its song “Burn Hollywood Burn,” with Big Daddy Kane concluding, “So let’s make our own movies like Spike Lee.”)
That was then. In 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences co-presented theBAM and LACMA celebrations of “Do the Right Thing.” At BAM, Patrick Harrison, the Academy’s director of New York programs, told the crowd about his experience of seeing the film when it came out. “I saw it in Los Angeles, and I remember how it felt watching it,” Harrison said. “I thought, Who is this guy? Who is this director? And who is that hot chick dancing in the credits? Spike Lee has a vision and a voice. And he is absolutely not ashamed or afraid to tell you what it is. Mr. Spike Lee!”
Spike Lee came to the lectern. He wore a vaguely nautical outfit, looking like a ship’s commander: white pants, navy blazer, white shirt, white cap. His hair is graying. His facial expression hovered between above-the-fray and mildly suspicious. There was a slight commotion at stage right, and he turned toward it. “Rosie, grab a seat!” he said. Rosie Perez poked her head out of the darkness and waved. The crowd laughed. She took a seat in the front row, far off to one side. “That’s where you’re going to sit?” Lee said. “I want to thank the Academy and BAM for this screening tonight, and also for the retrospective,” he said.
Then, on a screen the size of the whole stage: Perez, in a short, tight red dress, in front of a brownstone stoop, dancing to “Fight the Power,” by Public Enemy. The room erupted in cheers, applause, joyous yelling. This also happened a few years ago at another screening of the movie at BAM, on a hot summer day, without cast and crew there—Brooklyn loves to watch Rosie Perez dance. It’s a knockout sequence: brutal, expressive, vital, the colors hot, then cool, sounds and visuals making fighting and beauty harmonize. Perez is shown dancing at night, in a blue bodysuit and a leather jacket, the sound of a police helicopter overhead; in a boxer’s gloves and a sports bra, shorts, and boxing gloves, in front of a wall of graffiti.
Got to give us what we want
Got to give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We’ve got to fight the powers that be
Perez pops her chest in and out, arms raised in fists. She looks like she’s working toward something. She purses her lips and looks angry, sensual, exhausted, unwilling to quit. She dances to the whole song, for nearly four minutes. “Do the Right Thing” is the perfect delivery system for “Fight the Power,” perhaps the most danceable protest song ever. Throughout the film, it keeps reasserting itself, coming from the giant boom box of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a flattop, a focussed, serious expression, and a BED-STUY DO OR DIE T-shirt. “Fight the Power” sounds energized, aggressive, and now. (Even now.)
The music perfectly reflects the film’s power: Public Enemy young, smart, confrontational; Bill Lee’s orchestral score classic, beautiful, narrative, Hollywood. Lee is a master at revealing all the little interactions in a New York neighborhood: among three guys shooting the shit all day long (“If this heat wave continues, it’s going to melt the polar ice caps and the whole wide world,” one says), between the pizzeria owner, Sal (Aiello), and Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), who sweeps his sidewalk when Sal’s angry, racist son (John Turturro) doesn’t want to do it; between teens messing around with a fire hydrant and a tough guy who hollers at them not to douse his convertible as he drives by; between Clifton (John Savage), a white brownstoner in a Larry Bird jersey, and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), whose Jordans he scuffs. The movie is a touch poetic, heightened by the hilarity of the script and the beauty of the cinematography, by Ernest Dickerson, the colorful production design, by Wynn Thomas, and the eye-popping costume design, by Ruth E. Carter. You might cry when Perez dances, and you might cry toward the end, when Sal and Radio Raheem tumble onto the sidewalk, hands at each other’s throats. When I saw it as a teen-ager in 1989, in a theatre in Hartford, I was shattered at the end, seeing the image of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., come onscreen, and reading their quotations about violence and nonviolence. Now, at BAM, I was most struck by the humanness of the story: the way we assert and defend ourselves, the way we see people and don’t, the way we respect people and don’t; the way we do things we regret when we’re angry or fed up or even too hot. I’d love to know what Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson said to each other when the lights came on in the theatre in Chicago.
“Do the Right Thing,” about a day in the life of a Bed-Stuy neighborhood on the hottest day of the year, starts with its heroes waking up and ends the next morning, after a night that includes a fight, police brutality that ends in murder, and a riot. The movie was controversial when it came out—some publicly speculated that it would ignite violence—but, as in the character Radio Raheem’s monologue about his LOVE-HATE set of brass knuckles, love won. “Do the Right Thing” reignited interest in Malcolm X and encouraged a broader cultural reappraisal of his ideas; it inspired independent filmmakers; it made a zillion teen-agers into Public Enemy fans. But it didn’t get much love from the Academy. Though Lee was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Danny Aiello was nominated for Best Actor, the film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture—and, in a detail that Lee found especially painful, that honor went to “Driving Miss Daisy.” (Public Enemy razzed “Daisy” in its song “Burn Hollywood Burn,” with Big Daddy Kane concluding, “So let’s make our own movies like Spike Lee.”)That was then. In 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences co-presented theBAM and LACMA celebrations of “Do the Right Thing.” At BAM, Patrick Harrison, the Academy’s director of New York programs, told the crowd about his experience of seeing the film when it came out. “I saw it in Los Angeles, and I remember how it felt watching it,” Harrison said. “I thought, Who is this guy? Who is this director? And who is that hot chick dancing in the credits? Spike Lee has a vision and a voice. And he is absolutely not ashamed or afraid to tell you what it is. Mr. Spike Lee!”
Spike Lee came to the lectern. He wore a vaguely nautical outfit, looking like a ship’s commander: white pants, navy blazer, white shirt, white cap. His hair is graying. His facial expression hovered between above-the-fray and mildly suspicious. There was a slight commotion at stage right, and he turned toward it. “Rosie, grab a seat!” he said. Rosie Perez poked her head out of the darkness and waved. The crowd laughed. She took a seat in the front row, far off to one side. “That’s where you’re going to sit?” Lee said. “I want to thank the Academy and BAM for this screening tonight, and also for the retrospective,” he said.
Then, on a screen the size of the whole stage: Perez, in a short, tight red dress, in front of a brownstone stoop, dancing to “Fight the Power,” by Public Enemy. The room erupted in cheers, applause, joyous yelling. This also happened a few years ago at another screening of the movie at BAM, on a hot summer day, without cast and crew there—Brooklyn loves to watch Rosie Perez dance. It’s a knockout sequence: brutal, expressive, vital, the colors hot, then cool, sounds and visuals making fighting and beauty harmonize. Perez is shown dancing at night, in a blue bodysuit and a leather jacket, the sound of a police helicopter overhead; in a boxer’s gloves and a sports bra, shorts, and boxing gloves, in front of a wall of graffiti.
Got to give us what we want
Got to give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We’ve got to fight the powers that be
Perez pops her chest in and out, arms raised in fists. She looks like she’s working toward something. She purses her lips and looks angry, sensual, exhausted, unwilling to quit. She dances to the whole song, for nearly four minutes. “Do the Right Thing” is the perfect delivery system for “Fight the Power,” perhaps the most danceable protest song ever. Throughout the film, it keeps reasserting itself, coming from the giant boom box of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a flattop, a focussed, serious expression, and a BED-STUY DO OR DIE T-shirt. “Fight the Power” sounds energized, aggressive, and now. (Even now.)
The music perfectly reflects the film’s power: Public Enemy young, smart, confrontational; Bill Lee’s orchestral score classic, beautiful, narrative, Hollywood. Lee is a master at revealing all the little interactions in a New York neighborhood: among three guys shooting the shit all day long (“If this heat wave continues, it’s going to melt the polar ice caps and the whole wide world,” one says), between the pizzeria owner, Sal (Aiello), and Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), who sweeps his sidewalk when Sal’s angry, racist son (John Turturro) doesn’t want to do it; between teens messing around with a fire hydrant and a tough guy who hollers at them not to douse his convertible as he drives by; between Clifton (John Savage), a white brownstoner in a Larry Bird jersey, and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), whose Jordans he scuffs. The movie is a touch poetic, heightened by the hilarity of the script and the beauty of the cinematography, by Ernest Dickerson, the colorful production design, by Wynn Thomas, and the eye-popping costume design, by Ruth E. Carter. You might cry when Perez dances, and you might cry toward the end, when Sal and Radio Raheem tumble onto the sidewalk, hands at each other’s throats. When I saw it as a teen-ager in 1989, in a theatre in Hartford, I was shattered at the end, seeing the image of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., come onscreen, and reading their quotations about violence and nonviolence. Now, at BAM, I was most struck by the humanness of the story: the way we assert and defend ourselves, the way we see people and don’t, the way we respect people and don’t; the way we do things we regret when we’re angry or fed up or even too hot. I’d love to know what Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson said to each other when the lights came on in the theatre in Chicago.
by Sarah Larson, New Yorker | Read more:
Image: Do The Right Thing
