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Spike Lee
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Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated American film director, producer, writer, and actor, noted for his films dealing with controversial social and political issues. He also teaches film at New York University and Columbia University. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since .
was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Jacqueline Shelton, a teacher of arts and black literature, and William James Edward Lee III, a jazz musician, and composer.
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Encyclopedia
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated American film director, producer, writer, and actor, noted for his films dealing with controversial social and political issues. He also teaches film at New York University and Columbia University. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since .
Early life
Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Jacqueline Shelton, a teacher of arts and black literature, and William James Edward Lee III, a jazz musician, and composer. Lee moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York when he was a small child. The Fort Greene neighborhood is home to Lee's production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, and other Lee-owned or related businesses. As a child, his mother nicknamed him "Spike." In Brooklyn, he attended John Dewey High School. Lee enrolled in Morehouse College where he made his first student film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn. He took film courses at Clark Atlanta University and graduated with a B.A. in Mass Communication from Morehouse College. He then enrolled in New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He graduated in 1978 with a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Television.
Film career
Lee's thesis film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, was the first student film to be showcased in Lincoln Center's New Directors New Films Festival.
In 1985, Lee began work on his first feature film, She's Gotta Have It. With a budget of $175,000, the film was shot in two weeks. When the film was released in 1986, it grossed over $7,000,000 at the U.S. box office.
The reception of She's Gotta Have It led Lee down a second career avenue. Marketing executives from Nike offered Lee a job directing commercials for the company. They wanted to pair Lee's character from She's Gotta Have It, the Michael Jordan-loving Mars Blackmon, and Jordan himself in their marketing campaign for the Air Jordan line. Later, Lee would be a central figure in the controversy surrounding the inner-city rash of violence involving Air Jordans. Lee countered that instead of blaming manufacturers of apparel, "deal with the conditions that make a kid put so much importance on a pair of sneakers, a jacket and gold". Through the marketing wing of 40 Acres and a Mule, Lee has also directed commercials for Converse, Jaguar, Taco Bell and Ben & Jerry's.
Lee's movies have examined race relations, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues.
Awards, honors and nominations
Lee's film Do the Right Thing was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989. Many people, including some in Hollywood, such as Kim Basinger, believed that Do the Right Thing also deserved a Best Picture nomination. "Driving Miss Daisy" won Best Picture that year and according to Spike in an April 7, 2006 interview with New York Magazine, this hurt him more than his film not receiving the nomination.
His documentary 4 Little Girls was nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 1997.
On May 2, 2007, the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival honored Spike Lee with the San Francisco Film Society's Directing Award. He was most recently named the recipient of the next Wexner Prize.
Trademarks
- The borough of Brooklyn is the setting for many of Lee's theatrical releases.
- Lee often has a role in his films ranging from small cameo (Clockers) to leading role (Do the Right Thing).
- His films are referred to in their credits as "A Spike Lee Joint", except When the Levees Broke, which is referred to as "A Spike Lee Film".
- There is commonly a sequence using a "floating" effect, when a character seems to glide in the air like a ghost instead of walking to make it look like they are in a world of their own. Usually the actor is on a camera dolly, framed in a way that the viewer cannot see their feet. Denzel Washington has been the focus of this shot in Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X, and Inside Man. Mekhi Phifer is given the same treatment in Clockers, as well as Laurence Fishburne in the film School Daze. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Anna Paquin have similar shots in 25th Hour.
- Lee incorporates something related to baseball in every one of his movies. Examples include the New York Mets in Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens in Do The Right Thing, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente in Clockers, Reggie Jackson and the New York Yankees in Summer of Sam, and Jackie Robinson in Malcolm X, amongst other recurring themes in his movies such as She Hate Me.
Recurring actors
A number of actors have appeared in multiple Spike Lee productions. Joie Lee (Spike's sister) and John Turturro lead the list, each having appeared in nine Spike Lee films. They are followed closely by Roger Guenveur Smith and the late Ossie Davis, who each participated in seven of Lee's projects.
Public figures as actors
Several well-known public figures have appeared in Spike Lee films portraying characters other than themselves, particularly in Malcolm X. They include
Controversy
Lee has never shied away from controversial statements and actions involving race relations. In 2002, after headline-grabbing remarks made by Mississippi Senator Trent Lott regarding Senator Strom Thurmond's failed presidential bid, Lee charged that Lott was a "card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan" on ABC's Good Morning America.
Lee was the executive producer of the 1995 film New Jersey Drive, which depicted young African-American auto thieves in northern New Jersey. At the time, the city of Newark had the highest automobile theft rate in the country, and Newark mayor Sharpe James refused to allow filming of New Jersey Drive within the city limits. Years later in the hotly-contested 2002 Newark mayoral campaign, Lee endorsed James's opponent, Cory Booker.
In May 1999 The New York Post reported that Lee said of National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, "Shoot him with a .44 Bulldog." Lee contended, "I intended it as ironic, as a joke to show how violence begets more violence," Lee said Thursday. "I told everyone there it was a joke. I said I did not want to read in the papers, 'Shoot Charlton Heston.'" Insisting that he has no reason to apologize, Lee further explained that the remark was in response to a question about whether Hollywood was responsible for the then-recent rash of school shootings, saying, "The problem is guns," he said. Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey issued a statement condemning Lee as having "nothing to offer the debate on school violence except more violence and more hate."
In 2003, Lee filed suit against the Spike TV television network claiming that they were capitalizing on his fame by using his name for their network. The injunction order filed by Spike Lee was eventually lifted.
More recently, Lee commented on the federal government's response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Responding to a CNN anchor's question as to whether the government intentionally ignored the plight of black Americans during the disaster, Lee replied, "It's not too far-fetched. I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans." On Real Time with Bill Maher, Lee cited the government's past atrocities including the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.
Spike Lee is well-known for his devotion to the New York Knicks professional basketball team. Much of the blame for the Knicks' loss (93-86 to the Indiana Pacers) in Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, in which "Knick-killer" Reggie Miller scored 25 points in the 4th quarter, was given to Lee. Lee was apparently taunting Miller throughout the 4th quarter, and Miller responded by making shot after shot. Miller also gave the choke sign to Lee. The headline of the New York Daily News the next day sarcastically said, "Thanks A Lot Spike".
Lee sparked controversy on a March 28, 2004 segment on ABC when he said that basketball player Larry Bird was overrated because of his race, saying, “The most overrated player of all time, I would say it'd be Larry Bird. Now, Larry Bird is one of the greatest players of all time, but listen to the white media, it's like this guy was like nobody ever played basketball before him--Larry Bird, Larry Bird, Larry Bird, Larry Bird, Larry Bird.”
At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Lee, who is making Miracle at St. Anna, about an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during World War II, criticized director Clint Eastwood for not depicting black Marines in his own WWII film, Flags of Our Fathers. Citing historical accuracy, Eastwood responded that his film was specifically about the soldiers who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, pointing out that while black soldiers did fight at Iwo Jima, the U.S. military was segregated during WWII, and none of the men who raised the flag were black. Eastwood also pointed out that his 1988 film Bird, about the Jazz musician Charlie Parker featured 90% black actors, and sarcastically said that his upcoming movie about post-apartheid South Africa will not feature a white actor in the role of Nelson Mandela. He angrily said that Lee should "shut his face". Lee responded that Eastwood was acting like an "angry old man", and argued that despite making two Iwo Jima films back to back, Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, "there was not one black soldier in both of those films". He added that he and Eastwood were "not on a plantation." In fact, black Marines are seen in scenes during which the mission is outlined, as well as during the initial landings, when a wounded black Marine is carried away. During the end credits, historical photographs taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima show black Marines. Although black Marines fought in the battle, they were restricted to auxiliary roles such as ammunition supply, and were not involved in the battle's major assaults, but took part in defensive actions.
Lee also travels from Universities throughout North America and speaks to young kids on what they should attempt to accomplish in their lives. Never one to shy from controversy, he speaks directly at young African-Americans in almost a dissapointing tone. Most recently, in one of these lectures he said that black teens associate "intelligence with acting white, and ignorance with acting black," and that this is very common nowadays. Some see this as false, while others think Lee does the right thing into trying to get kids to "snap out of it" and try to be successful, especially on an era in which a black President is in office.
Personal life
Lee and his wife, attorney Tonya Lewis, had their first child, daughter Satchel, in December 1994.
Filmography
External links
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