#96 - Do the Right Thing

I can sum it all up in three words: "White People Suck." No other movie has made me more angry in its two short hours than this one. The simple story of one hot day on a street in Brooklyn that starts out almost comedic and ends in a blaze of violence was a box office success when it came out in 1989.

This is Spike Lee's most identifiable movie. He starred, wrote, produced, and directed -- quite a burden on the shoulders of a 32-year-old. I will divide my criticism of the movie into two parts: the writing and the directing.

First, the part that made me vein-bulging mad, the writing. The movie was well-written, obviously (my white-man anger was probably the emotion Lee wanted to glean). But the anger I felt for the ridiculously unfair and racially biased dialogue in the movie blinded me to any of the movie's meaning, which I do not think was one of his intentions.

To put it simply: a white middle-aged man named Sal owns a pizzeria on the Brooklyn street where many blacks frequent and pay good money for good pizza. One black customer, fittingly called Buggin' Out, becomes steadily more angry as the movie goes along that there are no black people on the pizzeria's wall of fame. Instead, there are Italian-American icons -- Sinatra, Pacino, DiMaggio. So Buggin' Out enlists the neighborhood recluse, a large man who carries a boom box around all day playing the same song, and they confront the manager. "Radio Raheem," as the boom box guy is called, refuses to turn his very loud rap music down when he comes into the pizzeria. A series of escalating insults and rising testosterone result in an outbreak of violence that leaves one person dead (because of dirty cop interference) and the pizzeria permanently damaged.

And then the blacks on the street have the gall to blame the Italians for the loss of one of their people, as if they were not at all provoked. It is one of the more ridiculous fifteen minutes in movie history -- I found myself staring jaw-dropped at the screen, more shocked by each thing they said than the thing before it.

However, the writing was very provocative and controversial. It dealt with race issues in a way that I don't think had been addressed yet up to that point, at least not in a way that was both so direct and so mainstream. For an example, visit this link where you will see an onslaught of insults about all the races portrayed in the movie. Warning: this movie is rated R for language and racial slurs. This clip has both.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/12637/do-the-right-thing-racial-slurs#s-p1-so-i0

And that's all I have to say about the writing: infuriating, stupid, and ridiculous characters whom I have learned to hate, but an effective script nonetheless.

So now for the directing. Despite my anger, I do believe this movie is very good and well-deserving of a spot on this list. The camera angles and the way the movie is paced are interesting and unique. Also, it has that it-all-happens-in-one-day aspect that I find so amazing in films (for instance). While some of these qualities may have come from the writing or the screenplay, I think it is the directing that makes them shine and made them so noticeable for me as an average viewer.

The actors' performances were extraordinary, no doubt about it. John Turturro was amazing as Pino, one of Sal's sons who helps him run the pizzeria (he is the second person that speaks in the above clip -- Spike Lee is the first). I commend all of them on working on a tough film with a lot of tough roles and hope that none of them actually believe some of the words that they were saying.