Christ, it never ends with this guy. Black militant to the core. As a black man, I hate that this racist fuck brain is seen as some sort of voice of African Americans. He’s an old, washed up, bitter midget with a chip on his shoulder who’s way past his prime and still living in the 60s or something. I think he does more to divide races than bring them together. I don’t need someone constantly reminding me of how bad I have it in this world because of the color of my skin, I’ve already got enough problems paying the rent. Fuck Spike Lee and the mule he rode in on.
Also, that’s not a “rant.” If anyone of any other background said this in that tone, it wouldn’t be called that. But it’s Spike, and he’s black, so he has to be the Angry Black Man.
“We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we’re gonna do this motherfucking film ourselves. I didn’t need a motherfucking studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people! Nothing!" He added, "And they’re gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? Fuck no!”
"You are the very first audience that has seen this film. Do me a favor. If you go out and talk about it, please tell them this is not a motherfucking sequel to ‘Do the Right Thing.’"
Reports described Lee as appearing “furious” on stage and “screaming at the top of his lungs” at the audience.
So how the fuck is that not a rant? Even his wife was apparently looking at him sideways and Spike himself called it a tirade. And if this were any other filmmaker, we’d be having the same conversation (besides the race issue). He was acting like an infant and does this regularly. He’s an angry man and needs to shut the fuck up. And two good films since the fucking late 80s does not make this man anything special.
Rant or no rant, if that’s the extent of it, I fail to see what is controversial about anything he said. I mean, the only thing that could be possibly construed as at all racially charged is that “Hollywood knows nothing about black people”, and considering all the other aspersions (fair and unfair) cast at Hollywood by a myriad of disparate sources, I don’t see what there is to be up in arms about that one in particular.
Of course he’s right. He’s not saying anything we all don’t know and have known for decades. So what? Nobody who can change that is paying attention. My problem is he’s the only black filmmaker anyone takes seriously and I’m sick of him continuing to ass rape that distinction. Now if there were two, three or four other black filmmakers I could put alongside the names of Tarantino, Soderbgerh, Fincher, etc that were on the same list to be considered for major films, it wouldn’t bother me as much. But this is it. One. Fucking. Guy. And he’s a douchenozzle and one of the worst examples of biting the hand that feeds him (in the same rant he cries about Universal not making Inside Man 2 for him direct???). If you got something to say about Hollywood, do it in private with friends. I’m sick of this guy being the poster boy for black film…we’re already fucked enough as a race. Obama is next on my shit list.
Taken by itself, it’s no big deal really. My reasons for being up in arms about it is different from the media’s, they’re just playing straight into his hands again as a media whore who loves seeing his name in the paper.
It’s Spike being Spike. He sued Spike TV for Christ’s sake. This is very much par for the course. His art outweighs the eccentricities in my eyes, though admittedly they’re pretty much mutually exclusive at this point.
Seems more like a Von Trier moment to me. And/or some weird desire to inject a little bit of Rock&Roll into the stuffy niceness of Sundance. Not a bad thing. The movie sounds kinda mild so that warm-up seems a bit off key. But Spike was always erratic with tone.
I think Spike is always going to be The Black Filmmaker, even after a director’s origin has ceased to matter. He’s kind of made his bed there. It’s probably more important to not think he speaks/acts/directs for everybody even if he thinks he does, if that makes any sense.
Eh, nothing especially assholish there. White media always loves to blow his shit out of proportion. I’d like to see actual video.
What he’s quoted as saying is 100% correct, and none other than the unlikely comrade George Lucas will back that up. Spike has said since the '80s that Hollywood doesn’t give a fuck about black stories unless they’re minstrel shit, gangsta shit or Driving Miss Daisy/The Help shit. It was true then and it’s true now, though it’s perhaps worth saying that Hollywood doesn’t give a fuck about intelligent white stories either. Todd Solondz sure doesn’t have any three-picture deal at Universal. Even Woody Allen has to go overseas now because that’s where the money is.
Spike’s real problem is he isn’t and never will be a Hollywood player. At heart he’s an indie filmmaker. I’m amazed he got to do Malcolm X at the level he did, and even then he had to go hat in hand around the rich black community.
Having said that, I do need to catch up on a lot of his 2000s stuff.
Not sure if I have any right to talk here, but if that’s where your head is (and I don’t want to imply too much), I think you need to do some soul searching. When the alternative for “poster boy for black film” is Tyler Perry, a guy who could never make Do The Right Thing or Jungle Fever or Get on the Bus or He Got Game* or Malcolm X or practically fucking anything in Lee’s oeuvre, I would imagine that’s an alternative any cineaste would want nothing to do with. For the record, there’s nothing wrong or incorrect with what he said. Lee can be abrasive and seemingly w/out a filter, but plenty of other filmmakers are like that as well, your mileage may vary.
*I know basketball like I know astrophysics, and I still absolutely love this movie.
I love how Ambler’s mad at Spike Lee for being too prickly, so naturally the next person on his shit list is the other candidate for “angriest black man in America”…Barack Obama?
Having worked with Spike, he is pretty nice in person. And the reason studios won’t give him money has nothing to do with race. Spike likes to thumb his nose at the studio system and not follow its rules (his AD staff is looked down upon by almost every AD I know). Well guess what, there are rules to working int he studio system. You want their money, you have to follow their rules.