Salon.com > Spike Lee

Tarantino drops the N-bomb

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:47:00 +0000

In a career spanning over two decades, Quentin Tarantino has made abundantly clear all the things he greatly loves to insert into his films. Epic bloodshed. Pop culture references that show off the breadth of his knowledge of cinema. And the word "nigger."

Boy, does he love to give his characters the chance to say that one. Think Dennis Hopper's coolly manipulative speech about Sicilians in "True Romance." The dead body storage problem in "Pulp Fiction." Steve Buscemi's attempt to break up a fight in "Reservoir Dogs." And boy does it reliably tick people off. So fond is Tarantino of the word that it's a wonder it took him so long to figure out that if he made a movie set in the plantation-era South, he could deploy the word all the time, because, you know, history. So it should have come as zero surprise to anyone that after winning a Golden Globe Sunday evening for his epithet-laced "Django Unchained" screenplay, he would then use the word to talk about the controversy about using the word.

Spike Lee: “Django Unchained” is “disrespectful to my ancestors”

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:15:00 +0000

Over the weekend, director Spike Lee told VibeTV that he refuses to see Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," the violent slavery-era Western that came out on Tuesday. "I cant speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it," he said. "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else." Lee also tweeted: "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.”

Dumb tweet of the day: Not really a “Spike Lee joint”

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:22:00 +0000

[embedtweet id="279343321497878528"]

[embedtweet id="279348060499345408"]

[embedtweet id="279351885616517120"]

Spike Lee remembers the good of Michael Jackson’s “Bad”

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:55:00 +0000

How does anyone, even Michael Jackson, follow up “Thriller,” the world’s greatest-selling album of all time? That’s the question that drives Spike Lee’s celebratory doc “Bad25,” airing on ABC Thanksgiving night. After “Thriller,” a lesser artist would have thrown down his mic and declared “game over.” But for all of his public soft-spoken charm and shy demeanor, Michael Jackson had incredible chutzpah. Few around him truly believed that lightning could strike twice. That never deterred the little boy who had sung and danced his way out of working-class Gary, Ind. — he didn't just set out to create another “Thriller"; he planned to top it.

Creatively, MJ took even greater control with “Bad,” writing all but two of its 11 singles. He was also largely responsible for the creative direction of the album’s visually arresting videos — short films, really. His reward: “Bad” became the first album in history to land five consecutive No. 1 pop singles. “This Is It,” the docu-concert rehearsal film glimpsing into what MJ’s comeback tour may have been, showed MJ as an aging master reminding his audience of his greatness. “Bad25” revels in MJ’s solidification of the throne at a time when his talent was still relatively innocent and raw.

How should we talk about blackface?

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 21:00:00 +0000

WHEN RIDING THE BUS to the University of Texas campus a few years back, I became suddenly conscious of the fact that the cover of the book in my hands depicted a stark white fist clutching a hammer against a black background. And the title: The Wages of Whiteness. It was enough to raise a few eyebrows. At the time, I was delving through the available literature on blackface minstrelsy, as part of my exams for the Ph.D. program in American Studies. Looking back on this brief bit of extreme self-consciousness, I think my gut feeling was right, because — at best — the topic of minstrelsy in America is a discomfiting one, not typically broached in public.

Spike Lee: The fix is in

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Shot in three weeks in and around an isolated pocket of housing projects in southwestern Brooklyn, “Red Hook Summer” might be the quickest, cheapest and most street-level production of Spike Lee’s career, or at least since his 1986 debut film, “She’s Gotta Have It.” As I wrote after seeing the picture at Sundance, it’s a messy experiment, driven by a restless spirit of invention. I could nitpick around the edges of “Red Hook Summer” all day long: The soundtrack by Bruce Hornsby feels oddly intrusive at inappropriate moments, and there’s an unexpected narrative left turn at about the three-quarter pole that will leave many viewers uncertain how to feel about this story and its characters.

Mike Tyson’s gross comeback

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 12:15:00 +0000

Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist. Mike Tyson spent three years in jail for sexually assaulting a teenage beauty contestant in an Indianapolis hotel room.

I want you to remember that. Because the guy who had that funny cameo in "The Hangover" is now peddling a one-man Broadway show, directed by Spike Lee, about his "Undisputed Truth." It's not yet in previews, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that a show that vows to go "beyond the headlines, behind the scenes and between the lines" will actually have quite a bit of contestable content.

Tyson's a very busy man these days. No wonder he's also currently hawking energy drinks -- in Poland. In a commercial that will haunt your nightmares, Tyson's a white-suited dandy surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. He sits at the piano, crooning, off-key, "I may be a beast, can't control my fists ... They say that I'm rough, unpredictable and gruff."