By Vivaan Shah
Spike Lee's movies are explosions of the id, it is speech
unfiltered, voice uncared for; hence it does not care in return. There's
nothing so sacred that Spike can't plumb it. He'd rather excavate it with the
brute strength of a coal miner, hacking away at things with a pick axe and
shovel things people wouldn't dare touch with a yard stick. And that's what
makes him one of the bravest and most brilliant of directors. He's not afraid
to examine the monster and bring him out in front of the lab lights to tickle
his horns and poke at his nose. You could always sniff a strain of mongrel
snouted misanthropy in his more biting scenes, and it was always a thing of
immense beauty and could often be quite glorious because of how true and
brutally, almost expressionistically, honest it was.
He'd talk about things like noses and mouths and write about
skin and flesh and bone and blood with the blatancy of a bulletproof bulldozer.
There was always something Mantoesque about his works, even Chugthaian in their
understanding of the 'muhalla'. His vernacular writings, the haircuts and
sports clothing, his characters who had monikers like Radio Raheem, Flipper,
Mookie, Gator, Mars Blackmon, Buggin' Out, and Bleek. When these men and women
burst out onto each other all hell breaks loose and the entire heavens tumble
from the sky, but Spike still stays firmly in command of the frame. There's a
violent poetry to conflict, and fighting is probably one of the most primal of
human activities, kind of like sports, which is probably why he is as
interested in the New York Nicks as he is in action.
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| A Still from Spike Lee's Malcolm X |
There's
a scene in Malcolm X where a well intentioned white lady approaches him with
all the caring and compassion of a mummified Mother Teresa. 'I'm white, I'm not
racist, I am sorry for what my ancestors did, what can I do to help your
cause?' 'Nothing!' Malcolm curtly replies and walks off. Now, one could
interpret this as a meanness of sensibility but for Spike it is a matter of
survival. If you're in the jungle you gotta be an animal sometimes, especially
if you wanna take on the carnivorous capitalists.
His
fury is almost biblical, cathartic, verging on the hysterical. It's actually a
study of hysteria the same way Goya's paintings were a cross section of
demonology. People tend to shout in his films louder even than the hellish din
of Coen Brothers' raving madmen. There are certain artists that like to rip
open the flesh in order to heal wounds that are in some cases ancient.
 |
| A Still from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing |
His films, especially his ‘90s output was distinctive for his
anger, his rage, what Brecht in Galileo called a 'divine wrath'. He was the
angry young man of directors. No other director shot human confrontations like
him. The scenes of conflict in his films escalate into dimensions of hysteria
not too many other filmmakers would dare to plumb. In fact, I would go so far
as to say no one else shot physical violence like him. Just take a look at his
fight scenes, it's like what Sam Peckinpah did with the gun fight, Scorsese did
with the fist fight and what Raoul Walsh, Anthony Mann, Samuel Fuller and Don
Siegel did with the poetry of combat and the persistence of pain. These men
shot men in action with a knowing edge of what violence does and how much it
hurts. It wasn't fun and games; it genuinely hurt not just the body but also
the mind and soul.
Think Angie's Italian
American father played by the late great Frank Vincent walloping the living
daylights out of her while her brothers try hopelessly to rescue her. Lee holds
the shot until Vincent and the two crazy brothers literally fall onto the floor
rolling over their living room carpet, overturning chairs and tables, the angry
father still sputtering and spewing the most vengeful racist rage. Think
Malcolm X's assassin played by an unrecognisable Giancarlo Esposito being
crushed as all kinds of people pile up on him after he rolls down a staircase
railing. Or even Danny Aeilo's final meltdown as he smashes Radio Raheem's boom
box with a baseball bat, or the final Rodney King like murder of Raheem by two
angry cops. Think also Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes' shoulder pushing
confrontation in a backstage corridor of a modern speakeasy in Mo' Better Blues
or Spike's Giant being pummelled by Sam Jackson's Mike Tyson punches as he cuts
to whirling push ins of Denzel's trumpet.
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| A Still from Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues |
These sequences are
all masterworks of staging and physical stunt work by all actors involved. I've
never seen fight scenes quite like the ones Spike used to shoot. I refer to him
as Spike because of how much his movies have meant to me since childhood. He's
almost like the friend I never knew. The classmate clown who had more on his
mind than making people laugh. Fritz Lang is his closest cinematic cousin. He
could also be seen as a descendant of Sam Fuller. As funny and exhilarating as
Lee's films were they could also make you cry. There was something deeply
poignant and sensitive about his more tender as well as slender moments. I
can't think of the eponymous Girl 6's unsuccessful meeting with her mystery man
without swelling up, and Prince's song also swells on the soundtrack. It's a
moment evocative of Ismath Chugtai's harrowing culmination of her short story
Nivaala.
One of Lee's most
potent moments comes from John Turturro's emotional explosion and cathartic confrontation
with his elderly father (played by an aging Anthony Quinn), after which he
descends the steps to his tenement only to eave teased, picked on and tormented
by his neighbourhood gang, in particular the brilliantly diminutive Nicholas
Turturro (his real life brother and one of my favourite actors. Him and Joe
D'onofrio are like Joe Pesci's younger brothers). All the while Sinatra's
'Hello young lovers' plays gently on the soundtrack. When Ossie Davis' The Good
Reverend Doctor shoots his crack head son (Sam Jackson's masterful Gator, which
was so mesmerising a performance that it forced the Cannes authorities to
create another section for Best Supporting Actor) Mahalia Jackson's Gospel
music 'He calmed the ocean' wails on the soundtrack as if lamenting what's
going on.
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| A Still from Spike Lee's He Got Game |
Spike understood the
neighbourhood guys but he also understood the girls. He understood pain,
loneliness, frustration and anger like very few filmmakers before or after him.
He could be in equal parts blistering as well as deeply sensitive. Just observe
his use of music through the ages, his casting, his characters, his ground
shattering and earth shaking camera work, his writing which was almost like
Black Beat poetry at times. A lot of his dialogues and words were structured
like lyrics and would often rhyme. His vernacular excavation and monikers are
worthy of Damon Runyon. He intensified my understanding of New York, more so
even than Scorsese, and made me realize how similar my neighbourhood was to
his. The constant disharmony between the African Americans and the Italian
Americans was akin to what I witnessed around me with the Mian Bhais (Muslims)
and the Maca Paaos (Christians).
He Got Game is a
masterpiece of editing, probably up there with the best of Eisenstein and
Stone. The energy of picturization and sheer choreographic audacity of the
lindy hop dance sequence at the beginning of Malcolm X can compare with the
best of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. The ending of Bamboozled is a masterpiece
of documentary filmmaking. In one expertly extended montage he shows us with a
lightness of touch and kindness and generosity of spirit-- all the sins that
Hollywood has been guilty of toward the black community since it's inception,
even managing to weave in Loony Toons images of Mammies, minstrels and
watermelon chompers, sparing no one not even old Al Jolson.
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| A Still from Spike Lee's Crooklyn |
His collaborations
with Ernest Dickenson resulted in some of the most audacious imagery that
popped out of the screen and grabbed you by the throat. There is of course the
famous Spike Lee floating dolly shot, but think also of his canted
expressionistic angles, his effortless aerial hoverings and the fluidity of his
movement and mise en scene. Terence Blanchard was definitely his Bernard
Herrmann and his compositions provided Lee's moments with a Wagernian weight
and gravitas. This was classic drama and dramaturgy almost of Shakespearean
proportions in a language that is unique to this medium and no other. One of
Lee's most moving films is the semi-autobiographical Crooklyn. Just take a look
at the astonishing opening montage of this film, which documents all the now
extinct street games that kids used to play before Sega was invented. The
ending of this film is one of Lee's most poignant yet ambiguous ones, it's up
there with the best of the Coen Brothers abstract endings. I was even
particularly moved by the little girl painting- 'THE END' on the floor in Mo
Better Blues. Lee understood the street, he had a childlike fascination for it.
It was a sacred space for him, almost like a spiritual playground, and his
characters and colours and forms were like beautiful birds pecking at the
troubled trees with a playful camaraderie. There was always something of the
child in Lee, and he has moments of poetry in his films that are unlike any
other in the history of the medium. He taught me pretty much everything I know
about Black music. His films are like operas of the soul, each note structured
like an aria that explodes and understands, plumbs and pains, draws and drives,
heals and hurts. His films carry some of the playful innocence of a child's
drawings with an adult's sensibility. I hope and pray he gets to make movies as
long as he wants to and we get to watch them and learn from him, about culture,
humanity and above all fun. Although his films could be heavy they were always
fun. Every time I see one of his movies I am enriched and enlightened,
spiritually and transcendentally. He's Got some serious Game. He's like the
Mohammed Ali or the Michael Jordon of cinema. He punches you out and pushes you
over the rim, but when he slides into slow motion he leaves you breathless and
breathing heavily at the same time. It's like seeing time stop and
reconstructed before one's very eyes. He always cures Ma Better Blues, makes me
wanna Do the Right thing, jump into the jungle with a fever, and it's only
after I'm Bamboozled, and Clocked that I know I've gotta have it. Take it easy
Spike! Keep crackin! Aaitee?!
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
About Author -
Vivaan Shah is an actor, director, writer, musician, singer, and painter. He has tried his hands at various art forms though acting is the one through which he earns his bread and butter. He studied in The Doon School, St.Stephen's College and Jai Hind College. He has been active in the theatre scene since he was a child. Theatre is unquestionably the most important medium in his life. Currently he is trying to make it as a fiction writer of genre and hardboiled novels.
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