Spike Lee Film Analysis

“Steel Magnolias” is a story about the close-knit relationships between six eccentric Southern women living in a small town in Louisiana. The film has a home spun, unpretentious feel to it. The plot alternates between humorous, everyday events with good-natured quips and the seriousness and heartaches to life’s unexpected crises. Through the laughs and tears, the six women learn to endure hard times and emerge from the struggles with grace and dignity. The film is set in the 1980’s with a tight knit homespun atmosphere. The Southern belles who are goofy on the outside but strong enough inside to survive any challenge that life deals them. Friendships help with a

In the film, Do the Right Thing, director Spike Lee presents the audience with the theme of racism. The title represents the everyday choices that we as Americans of various ethnicities, cultures, and race. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing allows the viewers to decide for themselves the right thing to do about racism. Everyone has the choice to be accepting of cultures, or people different from them. The film portrays how an Italian American named Sal has a neighborhood pizzeria in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York. The neighborhood is primarily African American, but there is a diverse amount of other cultures made up of, Hispanics, European Americans, also there is a store owned by Koreans. This film displays the discrimination between the races and how this can lead to violence.

Spike Lee’s camera technique in “Do The Right Thing” enhances racial tensions between characters. uses a lot of canted frames, tracking shots, close-ups, high and low angles, parallelism, and music to achieve this. The heat wave going through Brooklyn is exemplified in many ways: on the radio, through discussion between characters, people’s dress, and actions, etc. Lee also uses cinematography to get across how hot this day really is. For example, the film begins with a montage of people in the neighborhood trying to cool off, struggling to get through their morning routines: a shot of someone taking a cold shower, cuts to a shot of someone sticking their face in ice, to someone sticking their head in the freezer, men drinking beer, someone

Spike is no stranger to controversy due to the elements he uses in his films. Most of Lee’s films consist of an African American theme and inspect the issues of race relations, political issues, urban crime and violence. His 2nd film he made Do the Right Thing (1989) explored all of these issues. He also explored the issues of family/father & relationships in his films Crooklyn (1994), Get on the Bus (1996) and He Got Game (1998). In his films School Daze (1988), Do The Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Get on the Bus (1996), Summer of Sam (1999) and Bamboozled (2000) he included the issues circulating around racism. Another issue he explores is black female sexuality which is in the films She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Girl 6 (1996) and She Hates Me (2004).

It is unfortunate that intolerance continues to exist in our nation (or anywhere else for that matter). Racism, one of the largest and most prevalent forms of intolerance, commonly destroys relationships and can eventually lead to violence. The existence of such hateful ideologies is so prevalent in our society that popular culture is constantly trying to challenge the ignorant basis of racial conflict. Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, connects with this concept of racial conflict that is so foreign to my past. Through the application of my social and political views, I will demonstrate how Spike Lee’s film is difficult for me to relate to and, in my opinion, conveys a misleading message.

Spike Lee’s ‘School Daze’ has certainly done good for introducing historically black colleges and black modern culture to Central America than I have seen any other movie about colleges especially black colleges at that it is through this film that I have realize that the media plays a big part in educating us but also can be the cause of not only bitterness that will be built up but also enlightening us black people of our history and also our actions against each other. In the movie ‘School daze’ the themes of life versus dark skin the refusal of one to recognize his own race Are two themes that stood out throughout the film. And it’s only school these confront a lot of issues that aren’t

The film Do the Right Thing is a very relevant on issues of race. The film shows how there is tension between all races. The film shows racial tension between the communities in the hottest day of the year. The heat is a theme in the film. Heat in general gets people on edge and raises tension. The film relates to W.E.B. Dubois work “The Soul of Black Folk.” Dubois (1903) work includes the concepts of the veil and double consciousness. The African Americans in the film deal with the idea of a veil. Mookie the protagonist deals with the idea of double consciousness.

Shelton Jackson Lee was born in 1956 as the son of a Jazz musician and an art professor. Lee later grew into the nickname Spike and because of his parent’s background, he became

2. I picked this film because of the strong message it is meant to put across, considering that Lee wanted the world to acknowledge that while society had experienced significant progress up to the turn of the century, people still had a long way to go in order for the world to be a morally acceptable place. Reading more information about the girls killed during the 1963 Baptist Church bombing really shocked me and made me want to discuss this film.

In Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, we dive head first into a world of racial and social ills. The movie is set in the African American and Puerto Rican neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the year. We follow a young man named Mookie, who lives with his sister Jade, and works as a pizza delivery guy for a local pizzeria owed by Sal. Sal’s “Wall of Fame” is soon questioned by a man named Buggin’ Out, who believes that Sal should place some pictures of African American celebrities on his wall to represent the African American society he serves. Sal refuses and Buggn’ Out attempts to

Spike Lee and John Singleton write their films about inner-city violence and black youth. Although they grew up in different parts of the United States (John Singleton in Los Angeles and Spike Lee in New York) they have something to say to society. They both strive to expose the realities faced by African-Americans, especially those in inner-city ghettos. With Spike Lee starring as Mookie and John Singleton embodying Tre, both directors showcase their perspective on American society via their characters.

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) portrayed an important social problem of the time period – interracial rivalry. The movie was one of many ghetto action films made during the era. In the article “Producing Ghetto Pictures” by Craig Watkins, he says that the movies of the ghetto film cycle committed much of their storyline to that of the relationship between young, poor black males and the ghetto (170).

In spite of the fact that Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever are both associated with social and political issues, they tend to navigate through various racial viewpoints using different cinematic elements. Spike Lee uses a variety of techniques in his film to bring awareness to events occurring in today's society. For example Do the Right Thing, is a film that tackles down the social issue of prejudice as well as the controversial issues between Italian-Americans and African Americans in New York City. The whole movie unravels around the “Wall of Fame” located inside Sal’s Pizzeria, which only features Italian actors. One day a local customer name Bugging Out, demands to have black actors, since after all the pizzeria is located within a black neighborhood. Soon enough the “Wall of Fame” becomes a symbolic representation of racism and hate which leads to a riot involving an explicit scene of police brutality. On the other hand Jungle Fever, tends to emphasise on the subject of interracial couples, as well as the controversy between Italian-Americans and African Americans and of course the usage of drugs. The movie is based on Flipper, an African American architect who has an affair with his secretary Angie, who is an Italian-American. The climax of the movie occurs when Flipper’s wife Drew, finds out about the affair and from then on society begins to reject Flipper and Angie because of social norms. Forcing them into a corner where they later learn that they were driven

In Spike Lee 's Do the Right Thing, the story takes places in 1989, another year in the long struggle for equality for African-Americans. The film portrays the racial tensions between locals of the neighborhood and an Italian-American family in the majority Black and Hispanic neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) in Brooklyn, New York. Spike Lee shows us what a day in the life of the Brooklyn neighborhood consists of and throughout the movie he portrays several different aspects of a modern urban neighborhood, using the many unique personalities of the characters in the movie.

Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever is a narrative about racism and romance in the 90s. The film focuses on interracial relationships which were, at the time, considered taboo. Before 1968, however, the guidelines of the Hays Code would have made this film almost impossible to produce. While Jungle Fever doesn’t defy the previously dissolved Hays Code outright, there are several points that still do and do not follow the guidelines once used in cinema production.