Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

SPIKE LEE
b. Shelton Jackson Lee, Atlanta, Georgia, 20 March 1957
The most prolific African American director since Oscar
Micheaux, Spike Lee is credited with heralding a
renaissance of African American filmmaking, initiating a
radical break from Hollywood’s neo-minstrelization in the
1980s, and reestablishing the commercial viability of
‘‘political’’ cinema. As one of the few African American
directors considered an auteur, his films concern the
dramatic tensions of personal conflict informed by social
hierarchies of power—particularly of race and class,
encoded in a highly expressive and recognizable style.
Lee graduated in 1979 with a degree in mass
communications from Morehouse College, and in 1982
with a graduate degree in film from New York University’s
Tisch School of the Arts. His thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy
Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), won an Academy
AwardÒ , helping him to secure interest from two talent
agencies, William Morris and International Creative
Management (ICM). When neither company could find
him work in the film industry, Lee went independent,
securing financing with the help of friends and the Black
Filmmakers Foundation for She’s Gotta Have It (1986). The
film, produced by Lee’s newly formed company, 40 Acres
and Mule (a reference to America’s broken promise to
African Americans during Reconstruction), was shot in
twelve days with a budget of $175,000. It went on to earn
more than 8 million dollars at the box office and the Prix
du Film Jeunesse at Cannes. She’s Gotta Have It is
considered the catalyst for a resurgence in African American
filmmaking, demonstrating the commercial viability of
films about African Americans by African Americans.
Similarly, his second feature, School Daze (1988) also
did well at the box office, earning more than twice its
production costs. It was his third film, Do the Right Thing
(1989), that would secure his reputation as a director of
artistry and vision. This postmodern masterpiece,
Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992), Leslie Harris provided
a female perspective on teen life in an urban locale. I Like
It Like That 1994) by Darnell Martin (b. 1964), the first
film directed by an African American woman to receive
studio funding, provides an interesting tale of a woman
who, driven by a family crisis, finally comes to full selfrealization.
Other women directors who would emerge in
African American Cinema
concerned with rising tensions in a Brooklyn, New York,
neighborhood over the course of a hot summer’s day, is a
complex and compelling film examining race relations,
police brutality, class differences, and gentrification.
Lee expanded his talents, working in the area of
music videos, television commercials, and public service
announcements. He won an Emmy for a segment of ‘‘Real
Sports’’ and he directed two documentaries: the OscarÒ- nominated Four Little Girls (1997), about the 1963
bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, that
resulted in the death of four African American girls; and
Jim Brown: All American (2002) a feature on the sports
icon. Further, his impact on the industry includes the
introduction of a number of African American actors to
the cinema and the reinvigoration of the careers of Ossie
Davis and Ruby Dee. He has also produced films by other
African American directors that have become classics of
African American cinema, including I Like It Like That
(1994), The Best Man (1999), and Love & Basketball
(2000).
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Do the Right Thing (1989),
Malcolm X (1992), Clockers (1995), Four Little Girls
(1997), Summer of Sam (1999), Bamboozled (2000), A
Huey P. Newton Story (TV, 2001), Inside Man (2006)
FURTHER READING
Fuchs, Cynthia. Spike Lee: Interviews. Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Guerrero, Ed. Do the Right Thing. London: British Film
Institute, 2002.
Lee, Spike, with Kaleem Aftab. Spike Lee: That’s My Story and
I’m Sticking to It. New York: Norton, 2005.
Reid, Mark. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Cambridge, UK
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Frances K. Gateward
the 1990s include Bridgett M. Davis, Alison Swan,
DeMane Davis, Cauleen Smith, and Neema Barnette.
Cheryl Dunye directed Watermelon Woman, the first
African American lesbian feature, in 1996, and in 1997
Kasi Lemmons delivered a haunting, atmospheric drama,
Eve’s Bayou, the most successful independent film of that
year. Chicago-based George A. Tillman, Jr. (b. 1969),
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 69