Do The Right Thing

Kamala: I'm glad that Emily liked this one. Although it was no surprise to me as the Symington family has close ties to the black community. In fact, her brother won the DC African-American history bee two years in a row.

Emily: Ha. Actually though this movie is great. It is culturally significant, dealing with race conflicts in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Its centers on Mookie, played by Spike Lee, a young father working as a pizza delivery boy for an Italian-American owned neighborhood pizzeria. The majority of the film, like an hour and 45 of two hours, takes place entirely on one extremely hot summer day.

Kamala: It was really well shot. There were a lot of really interesting angles, especially one shot of Mookie walking over a little girl's chalk drawing in the street. The colors also were intensified in a way that made you really feel how how it was supposed to be. I also liked the motif of having Public Enemy's song Fight the Power playing from a boombox. It gave a realistic sense of being in this two or three block neighborhood with the same people walking in and out of your awareness. I don't know how to say that without sounding a little silly...

Emily: This film was extremely controversial when it was released. In the news it was impugned as a vehicle to incite poor black neighborhoods to riot. It also received a LOT of critical acclaim, being nominated for two academy awards and the palme d'or at Cannes to name a few. This film fits perfectly into our project because Spike Lee is a great example of one of those independent directors that emerged in the late eighties.

Kamala: The early eighties were overrun with big studio abominations and the lack of good movies out there plus increasingly available VHS home movies made it easy for anyone, not just film students, to become familiar with older films. Many of these directors were able to produce extremely new and interesting films such as Do the Right Thing, Repo Man, or, moving into the early nineties, Reservoir Dogs. Also, it was becoming easier and cheaper for people to have access to recording and editing equipment, allowing for lots of low-budget movies to be made and released by new filmmakers.

Emily: Do the Right Thing is a fresh, extremely moving film that stays with you.