For a cinefile I've missed a lot of movies over the years. This is mainly do to the limitations on my time and the money I'm allowed to use for entertainment. My years of initial formation were especially spotty, with years passing sometimes between visits to the movies. To paraphrase Spike Lee, DVD is the movie fan's best friend, allowing us to catch up with things time and money don't allow us to see in "reel time."
I recently saw two important movies that came out during my "formative" years that got past me. These are very different films; one very much a product of a particular time and place dealing with topical issues, the other set in a period, which is irrelevant to the universal observations on human nature it makes. Both stand up well, though one better than the other. I'll be taking a look at the Spike Lee Joint first, then look at the Coen Brother's movie Fargo next time.
1989's Do The Right Thing is director Spike Lee's observation on the state of the racial union in the late 1980's. It follows the goings on during the course of a hot summer day in and around a white owned pizzeria in the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Mookie (Lee) is a young African American working at Sal's Famous Pizza for $250 a week. He lives with his sister (played by his real life sibling Joie Lee), has a son with his girlfriend (Rose Perez, in her film debut) who he sees once a week, at best. He's not happy, but at the same time is comfortable with his hand to mouth existence and the relative freedom from responsibility it gives him. Mookie is angry when a customer named Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) makes a scene, complaining that the pizzeria's "wall of fame" contains only pictures of Italians, asking why there aren't any "brothers" included in the group. It's a black neighborhood, they are the ones putting money in Sal's (Danny Aiello) pocket, so they should be represented. After he gets kicked out Mookie goes out to him on the street asking his friend not to make trouble that could cost him his job. In many ways Mookie is likable, but is far from a perfect character. We understand his frustrations but his contentment with the status quo is clearly self defeating. This demand for recognition expressed by Buggin' Out is the recurring theme of the movie, and leads to the final, destructive confrontation at the end of the movie.
The scope of Lee's artistic and political vision is hard to summarize. The story is relatively simple, but takes many detours, showing us life on a tensely divided street. And this is not a "black people are good, white people are devils" movie either. Sal and one of his sons Vito (Richard Edson) are actually decent folk. The other, Pino (John Turturro) is the one truly malevolent character in the move, and even he has a moment to express his own frustrations, misdirected as they are, with a certain sense of empathy. We feel the frustration of the black residents as they see, not just Sal thriving in their neighborhood, but a Korean family, "not a year off the boat," as one person puts it, prospering in a once boarded up store front. Mean while the residents feel like they have no opportunities, are oppressed by the police, and have no stake in their own community. In spite of the clear frustrations, these are not sad or downcast people. There is a joy underlying much of the film which I think is meant to punctuate the humanity and dignity of the characters. They are not blind to their troubles, but they refuse to be defined by them as well. And the blacks in the movie are not sainted either. In the end, police brutality is real, economic oppression and racism are real. But I think Lee is telling the black community that it needs to look at itself as well, examine it's own values, and take control of it's own destiny if it is truly going to fight the power. Sporadic protests and riots are not enough if they don't lead to a real commitment to change. This is embodied by Mookie who has a moment of defiance and rebellion, but at the end of the film is only concerned about getting his regular $250.
I was with the movie for about ninety percent of its running time. Not that I agreed with everything Lee was proposing, but I thought he was making an honest, edgy, thought provoking work that honest people could debate and walk way from with different impressions. I think there is even room to debate exactly what it is Lee was trying to say, let alone if he's right or wrong. But if the film had ended with its famous riot scene, culminating with a picture of two "brothers" finally getting up on the wall, and quotes from both scrolling up the screen it would have been perfect. Instead we get a coda set the following morning that seems unrealistic and softens the impact of the climactic confrontation. We are left with Mookie and Sal on the street out side the burnt-out store, and after what had transpired the previous night I believe one of the two would have ended up dead, or at least seriously injured, had they actually met like that the next day.
I've left out a lot about the supporting cast, with great performances by the likes of Ozzie Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Nunn. Lee, who was only 32 when he made the movie, shows confidence with the camera, but constructs more of a montage of events rather than presenting a driving narrative. This was his manifesto, in a way; he had lot to say and wanted to get it all in. Far be it from me to argue with a man's artistic vision, but I would say the results leave us with the whole being greater than the sum of it's individual, sometimes disjointed, parts. As a topical film it is dated a bit, and references to the Tawana Brawley case, the police killings of Eleanor Bumpers and Micheal Stewart and the Howard Beach incident will be lost on many younger people today, as will the entire atmosphere of racial tension in New York City at the time that those events highlighted, and serve as a key point of departure in the film. But almost 25 years on Do The Right Thing still hold up as an artistic statement whose message is still relevant as problems of black unemployment and poverty persist. In 2013 race relations are better than in 1989, but far from perfect. So if Do The Right Thing is dated, and I do believe it is, it's not terribly so.
At this point I'll stop and hit Fargo next time, wrapping up my reflection of both films then.
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