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Analysing spike lee films
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Do the Right Thing Paper “Always do the right thing”, is what Spike Lee’s character Da Mayor tells main character Mookie in Lee’s 1989 movie Do the Right Thing. The movie takes place in racially diverse Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on a hot day. As temperatures rise so do the neighborhoods African American, Mexican, Korean, and Italian residences’ tempers. Director Spike Lee has created many well know films that touch a number of subjects. His movie Do the Right Thing is considered one of the most controversial films because of it’s direct and confrontational nature on the topic of racism in the United States. This very topic is still prevalent to this day, and we are still trying to find the answers to the problems that Lee …show more content…
He was born in Atlanta, Georgia as Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957. At three-years-old, Lee and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York where he continued to be raised. Lee was presented with the arts by his father, who was a Jazz musician. He attended school in the South, where he created his first film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn. After he graduated he continued his education at New York’s film school where he raised money to create the indie, romantic comedy, She’s Gotta Have It with Dickerson. The film got seven million dollars at the U.S. box offices, won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and a directing award at Cannes. Lee likes working controversial and current issues into his films, and just two years after his work She’s Gotta Have It, Lee wanted to create a film that would put a light on racism, immigration, gentrification, and police brutality. This film would turn out to the well known, what “some critics would consider one of the most controversial films of all time “ (Do the Right Thing Article #1), Do the Right Thing. He would propose many different problems but never give any answers. Rather, he left it up for audience members to interpret ,and figure out what they believe is the right thing to
The first word that comes to mind when thinking about Do the Right Thing is HOT. Everything about this movie was hot, from the weather down to the themes and issues it brought up. It’s interesting too watch this movie while living with a heat wave in NYC. There’s plenty of room for debate as to whether or not anyone did the right thing in this script, in my opinion most of the characters did the wrong thing. What’s interesting to me is to think about what Spike Lee considered the right and wrong thing to do in this screenplay. It’s not just his words as an actor playing a role, he also wrote, directed, and produced the vehicle for those words and actions to come to life. So it’s hard to separate Spike from Mookie, and I don’t think Spike would even want us to. I also wonder about some changes from the screenplay and the film, and the effect the have on the overall message of the film.
Do The Right Thing was Spike Lee’s first landmark film. Do The Right Thing is a movie that brings awareness to the racial tensions when people in a Brooklyn neighborhood of different racial and cultural backgrounds coexist, which ends in a tragedy. The film was a great success receiving many of awards and earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporti...
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
It has been nearly 75 years since the zoot suit riots first occurred in los angeles, and the emotional and physical toll that it had on hundreds of mexican-american citizens makes the event unforgettable. The brutality and discrimination we faced by thousands of white americans, and the lack of intervention by police officers made me truly understand how prevalent racism was during the twentieth century. The lack of interest that thousands of white americans had in helping the chicano immigrants was apparent, they wanted to put an end to the zoot-suiters who were potential criminals in their eyes merely because of the fashion choices we made. Ultimately, I believe that, although life has changed greatly since the early 1940’s, there are still
In the film ‘Michael Collins” Michael Collins was a man who used urban guerilla warfare to help gain independence from Ireland. On the other hand Martin Luther King Jr. used non-violent civil disobedience, a strategy to force political and social change. Both of these strategies worked for both men, but would it have worked vice versa for both men?
Recently, there is a spike of historical films being released lately. One of the films is an Academy Award nominee for “Best Picture,” Selma. The film, Selma, is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches. The film shows the struggles of the black community face with the blockage of their voting rights and the racial inequality during the civil rights movement. Selma is about civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. heading to the rural Alabama City, Selma, to secure the voting rights for the African American community by having a march to Montgomery. It shows the struggles from what the African American community had to endured during the 1960s. Selma shows a social significance to today’s current events, specifically
Being one of the few black students to attend Tisch School of the Arts, the aspiring filmmaker’s first year at New York University was a particularly difficult one. Lee’s experiences, race, and upbringing have all led him to create controversial films to provide audiences with an insight into racial issues. Spike Lee’s first student production, The Answer, was a short ten minute film which told of a young black screenwriter who rewrote D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. The film was not well accepted among the faculty at New York University, stating Lee had not yet mastered “film grammar.” Lee went on to believe the faculty took offense to his criticisms towards the respected director’s stereotypical portrayals of black characters (1).
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Through the film “In the Heat of the Night” racial tensions are high, but one character, the Chief of Police, Gillespie overcomes racial discrimination to solve a murder. The attitudes that he portrays in the film help us understand the challenges in changing attitudes of Southern white town towards the African Americans living there.
... supremacist gang, to rioting in an Asian owned grocery store, to finally brutally murdering someone. We observe as family ties become increasingly strained in every way, the viewer can easily conclude that Derek’s racism as well as his eventual influence on his younger brother ultimately contributed to their own downfall. As controversial as this movie maybe for the offensive language and brutal violence, it is a movie that deserves to be seen, and even discussed. It really provides insight into some factors within society that cannot be contained by the law or even deterred by even the harshest punishments. Even though American society is becoming more modernized as time goes by in terms of tolerance, racism will unfortunately always be prevalent in society and inevitably it will also lead some individuals to violently express their distorted mentalities.
Do the Right Thing. Dir. Spike Lee. Perf. Danny Aiello, John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Martin Lawrence, Bill Nunn, Richard Edson, Roger Guenveur Smith and Spike Lee. Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks.1989. Streaming (Netflix)
“We fight each other for territory; we kill each other over race, pride, and respect. We fight for what is ours. They think they’re winning by jumping me now, but soon they’re all going down, war has been declared.” Abuse, Pain, Violence, Racism and Hate fill the streets of Long Beach, California. Asians, Blacks, Whites and Hispanics filled Wilson High School; these students from different ethnic backgrounds faced gang problems from day to night. This movie contains five messages: people shouldn’t be judgmental because being open-minded allows people to know others, having compassion for a person can help people change their views in life, being a racist can only create hate, having the power of the human will/goodness to benefit humanity will cause a person to succeed at any cost and becoming educated helps bring out the intelligence of people.
7. Historical Background: His name when he was born was Lido, not really Lee. He changed it when he had to go down South for a sales campaign. He thought that the Southerners would like it better if his name was Lee. It worked fairly well too. Anyway, his father was the first person to arrive in America. He arrived in 1902, at the age of 12. His father went back to his birthplace, Italy, and married Antoinette. They came back across the Atlantic. Except this time, his father, Nicola, was an American citizen. They moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, also where Lee was born and raised. Lee (Lido, I’ll use Lee from now on though.) was born on October 15, 1924. Lee’s father was a sort of philosophical type of person. He always had an important lesson to tell his son. It usually was great advice that just about anyone and everyone could use. His father once said that ‘When times are tough, be in the food business. No matter how tough times get, people still have to eat.’ He was right. He had a hot dog food stand that stayed afloat during all of the depression. Lee was in the Allentown public schools, as a kid. He was an Italian kid in a place full of ‘Pennsylvania Dutch.’ So he was harassed by a lot of kids. He never let it get him down though. His father was always pushing him to be the best. His father was a hard worker and came from a foreign family.
‘Our interest in the parallels between the adaptation inter-texts is further enhanced by consideration of their marked differences in textual form,’
The movie Courageous discusses important issues we face in society today. This movie shows the importance of family, the danger of drugs, and the major importance of Christian values. Courageous causes me to consider how I treat others around me and how I can become a better Christian. I learned that living a life looking out only for myself and pursuing worldly pleasures not only consists of superficial and temporary happiness, but also consists of pain, suffering, emptiness and a longing for something more than what we have.