July 99 Interview - Spike Lee on Filmmaking

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REVIEWS

Summer of Sam movie review by Shelby Jones.

 

VIDEO INTERVIEW

You can view the digital interview to hear Spike Lee's thoughts on "Summer of Sam" and his relationships with Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino. You will need a Real Player to view digital interview. Real Player can be downloaded free at real.com

 

INTERVIEWS
Spike Lee discusses Summer of Sam, and his body of work honored in BAM's "Summer of Spike" film retrospective.

 

 

 

Spike Lee discusses guerilla filmmaking versus traditional film school, Matty Rich and the Black Film Renaissance of the early '90s. by Nasser Metcalfe

 

NM
In the late eighties and early nineties, there was a lot of talk about the renaissance of a black film movement. Perhaps you remember this [article]. (At this point, Nasser produces a New York Times Magazine, dated July 14, 1991, with a cover story entitled "They’ve Gotta Have Us: Hollywood’s Black Directors". The cover features a group portrait of Spike with fellow filmmakers, the Hudlin brothers, Ernest Dickerson, Mario Van Peebles, John Singleton, Charles Lane, and Matty Rich.) Now that we are at not only at the close of the decade, but at the close of the century, where did that movement go and where is it headed now?

SL
Well, as far as the movement, it’s the same thing that happened with the black exploitation era. [John] Singleton is getting ready to direct "Son of Shaft". Ernest Dickerson, who I think is a very fine director, is doing a lot on cable. The Hudlins' last film was "The Great White Hype" as well as executive producing Millecent Shelton’s film "Ride". Matty Rich, forget about it. Matty Poor.

NM
Tell us how you really feel.

SL
Mario [Van Peebles] is really more into acting now. With Charles Lane, I liked "Sidewalk Stories".  The trick has always been to build a body of work. We’ve been very fortunate to make twelve filmsin the last thirteen years. That’s what matters, the work. You know Matty Rich came out talking all that shit. He made ...what was the first one?

NM
"Straight Outta Brooklyn"

SL
That film was him. That was his story, but you can only do that one time. What was the other one?

NM
"The Inkwell"

SL
Whew. It’s unfortunate because when he came out he got bad advice. He was like "I’ve never read a film book, I don’t go to movies, I don’t know how to use a camera, I’m from the streets!" And eventually that was reflected in his filmmaking. He knew nothing about film. He was ignorant to film grammar. That type of thinking, not just Matty Rich, but where black people equated being being down, being real, and being black with just being stupid [explative], you know that shit has got to stop. Where if you’re intelligent, and you speak well, and you go to school, then you’re considered [trying to be] white. [Matty Rich] used to say "Spike Lee, he went to college. He went to college. I’m from the streets!" That’s just some ignorant shit, man. We've got to stop that stuff. It’s ignorant.

NM
That brings me to something else. Not too long ago, I was at an independent film screening. There were two directors on a panel, one had gone to film school, had received government funding to go to school and for his thesis films. The other had been at it for almost thirty years, going the guerilla filmmaking route, securing funds how ever she could and learning from mistakes as she went along. They ended up in a debate as to which was the proper approach.

SL
There is no debate. No one intelligent has ever said that there is only one way to do anything. There’s no one way to be a filmmaker. There’s no one way to be an actor; there’s no one way to be a [Director of Photography]. So anybody that says that the only way to be a film director is to go to film school is an idiot. As is someone who tells you that you shouldn’t go to film school and that you should work up from being a [Production Assistant]. Who are these people to make up these rules? So they were wasting people’s time if that was a debate; if they think that the route they went is the only way because that’s just not true.

NM
When did you decide that you wanted to be a filmmaker?

SL
When I was in college at Morehouse.

NM
Was there a particular event that led to that decision or was it just an evolution?

SL
Evolution. I had to choose a major and I chose Mass Communications, took those classes across the street at Clark College, which is now called Clark Atlanta University.

 

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