III. Enlargment of subjects : “Good directors are good storytellers," Lee said.
- Summer of Sam (1999)
As someone says in the film, “there are eight million stories about this city - this is one of them”
New York City's infamous summer of 1977, one of the hottest summers on record
produced the city's first serial killer, called “Son of Sam”
But : the film is not mainly about the killer who was sentenced to 300 years in prison and is still serving his sentence.
Vinny is a macho type who cheats on his wife,
Ritchie decides to become a punk. The road to fame is hard and, therefore, he also works as stripper and prostitute in a club for homosexuals.
The police asks the local Mafia to help them to find the killer.
Luigi does not trust the cops and instead organizes vigilante groups, armed with baseball bats.
Difference with others Spike’s movies
Lee : an American : We're the most violent nation on earth. There's no getting away from that," Lee tells
Not dealing with the AA community
Showing disco and punk
As the temperatures and body count rise, the city becomes immersed in terror
But, as in Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee, depicts NYC as a melting-pot ready to boil over.
- Summer of Sam is concerned less with the psychopath than his psychological effect on people in New York City, namely the Bronx
- The characters whose lives are examined in Summer of Sam have no direct ties to the killer nor his activities, but they are all profoundly affected by them
- dark picture of the Italian part of the Bronx where infidelity, drug traffic, abuse, and discrimination are ready to surface
- the one who is different, the bisexual punk Ritchie, becomes a victim of public hatred
- 25th Hour (2002)
"I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I'm a New York filmmaker" Lee tells.
- adapted from a novel :
last twenty four hours Monty Brogan gets to spend with his two best friends, and his girlfriend, before he goes to prison for seven years for pushing heroin, as they party the night away in New York City
- more meditative mood, exploring the American psyche post 9/11
Lee felt that a film about sorrow and regret set in modern-day New York had to incorporate Sept. 11 in some way.
"I don't think it was a big decision; I made that decision like this," Lee says, snapping his fingers.
"The bigger decision was how do we show 9/11 in this movie. And how much do we show, because we knew it was still a very sensitive area.
- addresses it plainly and directly,
Sept. 11 = one more element in the film's portrait of New York City.
* Visual references : opening credit (bande son) montage of the towers of light from the World Trade Center site last April
* Other times, Sept. 11 is discussed openly, as in a scene where
ex : two characters talk about the quality of the air in the Financial District as they stand in front of a large window overlooking ground zero.
Ex : tributes to fallen firefighters in restos
- very tight link between the city and the character, Monty :
regret, sadness, shift of perspective : integrated into the movie.
In //, other side of the City :
Extract Chp 6, 36’
he rails against everyone in the city who is not like him
combination and clash of the different cultures, makes NYC great,
but also exasperates people."
- Back to main themes:
* Lee confronts his audiences with truths -- like the racism we all carry inside us -- most other movies prefer to ignore.
* Spike's movies = compassion for people's struggles with difficult issues –
(race, morality, personal responsibility, money)
* It was just an honest way of dealing with being a New Yorker afterwards, trying to represent a battered but still-standing NYC
Remind : Do the right thing ; Brooklyn’s Bed Stuy
Jungle Fever : Bensonhurst
SOS : The Bronx
- She Hate me :
LEE : “The inspiration for this film was Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia... You know, all these big, big corporations and the people who run them, who are just stealing money left and right».
Harvard, MBA-educated biotech executive John Henry “Jack” Armstrong gets fired when he informs on his bosses and initiates an investigation into their business dealings by the Securities & Exchange Commission
Jack desperately needs to make a living. his former girlfriend Fatima, a lesbian, offers him cash to make her a baby
the attempts by his former employers to frame him for securities fraud and his dubious fathering activities, Jack finds his life, all at once, becoming very complicated
- sex and procreation connecting with what's happening in corporate America
* But, Spike keeps being partial to some themes (maintien de thèmes de predilection)
"People fear that which is not familiar."
challenging cultural assumptions not only about race but also class and gender identity
In Lee's 1986 She's Gotta Have It, fear centred on the conventions that bind sexuality
in his 1991 Jungle Fever, racist hostility is provoked by people's inability to overcome the colour divide.
Lee examined the insecurity generated by inter-racial sex
in Summer of Sam, the character's non-conformity in his own community establishes him as the scapegoat (Richie).
She Hate Me : Lee's favorite themes and obsessions —
sexual stereotyping of the African-American male,
modern nuclear family
fatherless babies
Conclusion
- Such is the hallmark of the man whose position as America's most visible black director has too often obscured his place as one of its finest film-makers
- media who look at a high-profile black presence in the movie business and see a spokesman for his entire race. "And I never wanted that role," he says. "I've never wanted to speak for black film-makers”.