THE INDISPENSIBLES - #16: DO THE RIGHT THING
‘It’ was there from the start, if we’re all honest. Right there, in those first two movies he gave us. The movies in question, She’s Gotta Have It and School Daze, were mediocre and confused, respectively, but there was most definitely a voice there. A unique cinematic voice. A voice itching to be heard, and to tell a story that had to be told, and to educate us about things we weren’t understanding of or to change our understanding of things we thought we did. We knew it was coming.
You sit through She’s Gotta Have It for example, and visually you can’t help but see this directorial debut as a staggering achievement for a first time director on such a minuscule budget (this is the best New York has looked since that other black-and-white love-affair, Manhattan) but from a script and acting point of view it’s an unfortunately amateurish affair.
You get to School Daze and, whilst I admit there are people out there who absolutely adore the hell out of this film, I’m not one of them. I think it’s one of Lee’s least well executed and poorly judged films that seems to run all over the place, hammering points about race, self-esteem and self-identity with a complete lack of sensitivity or subtlety that Lee would become very capable of in his later films. It possesses an ending that is meant to be intelligent, thought-provoking and controversial but - just like Joe Queenan unfairly says about ALL of Lee’s movie endings - fails completely!
But then came Do The Right Thing. The voice found its way through. The confidence burst to the surface. Casting, music, direction, location, intent… everything just melded together to make not just one of the best films of the 80s, but one of the best films of all time. Lee has made other films that could be considered masterpieces (Summer of Sam and He Got Game for example), but along with When The Leevees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts, this here movie is his magnum opus!
Lee’s third movie is exceptionally well-made with gorgeous cinematography from Ernest Dickerson who would go on to be a director in his own right (but seeing as the highlights of his filmography are the Adam Sandler / Damon Wayans buddy movie, Bulletproof, and the actually-quite-decent Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight, let’s not applaud him too highly). On top of its iconic soundtrack, it is also gifted with quite simply a magnificent ensemble cast. Danny Aiello, too often written off as an egotistical joke or a poor man’s Robert De Niro, leads the way as Sal. This, Luc Besson’s Leon and the enormously under-rated conspiracy drama City Hall, make up a trio of really great Aiello performances. The final scenes of Do The Right Thing are handed over to Mr Aiello and, supported by the weight of Lee’s masterful directing and writing, he quietly and methodically knocks it out the park, so to speak.
The movie takes place during one long, extremely hot day in a neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York. Said neighbourhood is populated, for the majority, by black people of various ages, temperaments, and outlooks on life. The most popular fixture in the neighbour, however, is the Italian American pizzeria ‘Sal’s’ ran by its namesake owner, who boasts that “these people have grown up on my pizza”, and his two sons, the hate-filled racist Pino (John Turturro) who lacks the courage but has the sense not to be public with his opinions, and Vito (Richard Edson) the object of Pino’s bullying. Mookie (Spike Lee), delivers pizzas for the family business but also serves as the neighbourhood gossip.
We meet a whole host of wonderfully etched characters along the way too, all too great to be covered here in mere sound-bite sized character synopsises. And as the day goes on, the heat increases, and things start bubbling under the surface of what we, and the characters, are seeing. It starts out small and appears barely significant, with characters questioning why there are no black ‘celebrities’ on Sal’s wall of celebrities, when the strength of Sal’s business is built on the custom of black people. But tensions keep building. The small things don’t go away. They just serve as foundations for fresher conflicts to be built upon. Old hurts are being remembered. Mookie occasionally stirs the metaphorical pot as a form of his own entertainment, then tries to play the role of ‘peace-bringer’ and mediator when he sees things sliding out of control. And finally things explode in racial violence.
And for those who have never sampled the brilliance of Do The Right Thing, that is all you should know going in.
Do The Right Thing is not an incitement to hate. It is not a movie that tells us white people are bad and black people are misunderstood and too quickly generalised. It is a film that puts racism up on a platform in front of us and asks us to look at it from all sides and all angles and to do one simple thing in return – think! We are required to think about the characters, think about how we first see them and then how they seem to us come the movie’s end. To think about what we would have done or said if we were one of those characters or if we ourselves were caught up in this situation.
It is a film that is absolutely impeccable in how it presents itself. There is not a performance, a line of dialogue or a moment of direction that is not tuned to absolute perfection. Every moment within it counts and says something that we need to hear. It is a movie that has the audacity to tackle a very difficult subject, without having the answers on hand to spoon feed us with.
It is, quite simply, a truly tremendous, extraordinary piece of cinema!
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- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #25: MUNICH
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18 Responses to “THE INDISPENSIBLES - #16: DO THE RIGHT THING”
I’ve turned this on a couple of nights on Sky Movies while I’ve been going to sleep, and had to turn it off because I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s on Sky Anytime at the moment I think. It’s one of hose movies that I keep meaning to watch. This has just given me the impetus to do so!
I cannot believe you have not seen this in full and worship at its feet Sean. That really surprises me. I would have thought this was definitely in your top 100 somewhere!
Yeah I’m a big Spike Lee fan too, it’s one of those movies that I’ve wanted to see for years. Happened me with Raging Bull too, took me years to finally watch it. I’m about 20 minutes in to Do The Right Thing. But I have it so built up I don’t want to just watch it for the sake of it, I want to be in the right mood and stuff. I’ve never seen it in any deals in Virgin or HMV or anything, which is usually how I end up picking up classics I’ve never seen. Which is what happened with Raging Bull. If it’s still on Sky Anytime I’ll watch it tonight. Have the latest episodes of Entourage, House, Dexter and Heroes to get through too though! Thankfully the weekend is almost upon me!
Well… for a start, abandon Heroes. That show has got SO shit it doesn’t bear thinking about. I have Season 3 of Entourage to go back over and I’m loving Season 5 at the moment.
You can not NOT own DTRT.
I am sure you have £3.20 right?
Get yourself over here:
Amazon Link
They even have a Spike Lee TRIPLE box set (Do The Right Thing, Clockers, Jungle Fever) for FIVE POUND AND TWENTY PENCE! That is cool!
PS
Check out this to…
Off The Shelf 29: Spike Lee Collection
Oh, and tell, Jessie and company to check out THE INDISPENSIBLES too. They may enjoy it!
Personally, I’m still enjoying Heroes. It might not be as amazing as when it first started but it is still a quality piece of TV, in my opinion.
And certainly better than most of the shite that’s on TV!
I couldn’t disagree with you more - I used to be SO into that show, as did pretty much every single one of my friends bar, I think, one! We used to savour each episode, talk about it loads and really dig it.
Now, like most of the US it seems (and how the hell it is hanging on I do not know! FREAKS & GEEKS got cancelled and its highest viewing figures were better then what HEROES has been this season), all of my friends have given up on it completely.
I still SKY+ it but I only ever have it on as background noise whilst I’m writing for the site or working on the script.
That thing that EW wrote last month, the ten point plan as to how to save the show, was absolutely spot on. And I thoroughly agree with the EMPIRE blog regarding it too.
Regarding it being better then “most”. Well, I think it will struggle to find a place in people’s affections if it went up against the likes of 24 or something like that. And I think the likes of:
DEXTER
PRISON BREAK
TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (although not by much, I do admit)
CHUCK
and most definitely FRINGE
are all HUGELY superior shows!
Thing is, I don’t like 24 - I lost interest in that a looong time ago, and couldn’t get into Fringe despite it being “my kind of show”. It just failed to engage my attention after the first two episodes, so I haven’t bothered since.
I love Dexter, but am hoping that they change things a little somehow for the third season, and still am sticking with Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles but have lost interest in Prison Break as well. I still tape every episode but haven’t bothered with it since around episode 7 as it’s beginning to bore me a little. Maybe it’ll capture my attention some more once I start watching it again, but at the moment I just haven’t got the urge to watch it.
But as we say plenty of times around here, peoples tastes differ. Maybe I don’t have a problem with it because of my love for comics and superheroes in general? Who knows. But I can’t be alone in liking the show still, especially as it was, apparently, the most watched multichannel show here in the UK last night!
And I couldn’t comment on the Empire blog or the EW points as I never saw either. Gimmie a link and I’ll check it out.
FRINGE is absolutely fantastic! A brilliant show! And not usually my cup of tea, at all! Which is all the more impressive.
PRISON BREAK has turned into a caper-heist sort of thing and it is REALLY good entertainment! You should dig back into that!
And, I was wrong about EW. It is a FIVE point, not a ten point plan, but you can find that here:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20235213,00.html
And the Empire Blog is, whilst written for the opening of Season 3 so its a “tad” out of date, but still hugely relevant, is here:
http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/Post.asp?id=279
But, anyway… DO THE RIGHT THING?
I don’t mind Heroes so much, I find it watchable. I bought series 2 on DVD thinking it was going to be shite and was surprised that it was okay, season 3 so far is keeping me watching. Being a big fan of the Dexter books I loved series one and absolutely hated series 2, found it a chore to sit through, series 3 is okay though, but it’s so not the Dexter from the books. It’s lost the anarchy.
I watched the first episode of Fringe and hated every moment of it, the acting and the script, I just hated it.
But mentioning Freak and Geeks, ye should do a series on underappreciated TV shows, Undeclared, Freaks and Geeks, Carnivale, Arrested Development, The Wire (the fact that it wasn’t even nominated for an Emmy in its final season makes every Emmy nomination before and since for any show completey irrelevant as they failed to recognise the greatest TV show of all time.) Strangers with Candy. Too long a list really.
Yeah but anyway, Do The Right Thing, I’ll pick it up soon and give it a watch. Summer of Sam is one of my favourite movies, when Spike Lee is on form, he’s tough to beat.
Oh yeah, Series 5 of Entourage is great, they finally realised that it’s more entertaining when things are going wrong for Vince. You know, actual drama lol. Always liked the show though :P
24 STILL RULES!!! Haters to the LEFT!
24: Redemption (aka 24: EXILE for you yanks) premieres here on Monday - VERY EXCITING!
Season 6 was shit though!
PS NotorietyH… I have NINE pages I’m happy with! NINE! Count ‘em! NINE!
PPPS NotorietyH… Just re-checked; it’s actually eight and a half!
Wooo! 8 and a half pages. That’s more pages of quality writing than Akiva Goldsman’s had in his entire career, so you’ve already got him beat anyway!
Would you like to see them?
Indeed I would, not sure how constructive my feedback would be of 8 and a bit pages, but I guess we’ll find out lol!
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