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Vive la différence | page 1, 2
Summer of Sam
Directed by Spike Lee
Sarah Vowell Sarah Vowell's column appears on the Arts & Entertainment site every other Wednesday.
Sure, Lee is famous for taking on big subjects like race and class and gender, but has anyone ever noticed how good he is at the metaphysics of hair? Like the moment in "Do the Right Thing" in which Sweet Dick Willie rolls his eyes when the goofily coiffed Buggin' Out suggests they boycott Sal's Famous Pizzeria because it only displays pictures of Italian-American icons on the wall. Says Willie, "What you ought to do is boycott that goddamn barber that fucked up your head." It's hardly a coincidence that such a cosmic cosmetologist as Lee assigned Leguizamo's character the occupation of hairdresser, or that he chose as his subject the Son of Sam himself, who targeted brunets with shoulder-length hair. When the brunets of New York start chopping their locks and dyeing them blond, Leguizamo's boss at the salon (Bebe Neuwirth) takes a stand: "Screw Son of Sam. I'm not cuttin' my hair." When hair makes a statement, it becomes dangerous. If Sorvino's sweet Dionna (with whom her husband can only let down his hair when she dons a blond wig --"I feel like I'm cheating on you with you," he confesses) is the film's human heart, the punk rocker Richie (the charming Adrien Brody) is its moral compass. Forced to move back in with his parents in the Bronx after he's been evicted from his Manhattan apartment, the spiky-haired Richie, in a Union Jack T-shirt, is anathema to the neighborhood guys -- many of them minor mobsters -- he grew up with. Ruby, the neighborhood whore and Richie's future girlfriend, is clearly enthralled, asking him if he's been to London. "No," he replies in his best cockney accent, "but it's all in the attitude." Richie's purpose in the film is not subtle. He is different and as such is a symbol of difference. He gets the most philosophical dialogue: When Leguizamo's character chides him for wearing a dog collar around his neck, Richie retorts, "You're on a leash to a certain way of thinking." Son of Sam's mania is just a framework. Especially through the punk Richie, Lee takes a stab at indicating the more mundane, daily varieties of violence that ultimately take on a more evil cast than does the shooting spree of a madman. "Summer of Sam" is ultimately about tolerance, but this being Spike Lee, the topic isn't couched in touchy-feely treacle, but rather exposed through dark humor. There are hilariously stupid moments involving the mobsters' suspicion that Richie is the Son of Sam because he has weird hair -- like when the men of respect squirm their way through CBGB's temple of punk, or the way one draws a portentous Mohawk on the head of a Son of Sam police sketch featured on the front page of the Daily News. If all of the above sounds like 29 barely-
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About the writer Table Talk Sound off Related Salon stories Spike just ought to have fun How America's foremost black filmmaker lost his touch.
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