REVISITING "DO THE RIGHT THING"

I recently went to a 20th-anniversary screening of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" in London. Plenty of folks are chiming in about the significance of this fiercely political and racially charged film, then and now. (Let's not forget, it was the movie of choice for Obama's first date with Michelle.) One British writer recently went so far as to call it one of the best films of all time.

I've seen "Do the Right Thing" many times, and have observed and participated in many debates about its value and meaning. But this particular London screening reminded me of just how well it captures the little things that not only set people off, but also calm them down and even make them laugh. There are incendiary and violent moments throughout the film (based on actual events), but there is also plenty of humour and humanity.

On the hottest day of the summer in the racially mixed Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, kids spray an uptight, older man in a convertible with water from a fire hydrant. A pizza-delivery guy ditches work to go home and take a cold shower and then rub ice cubes all over his girlfriend's body. Three older men sit under an umbrella on a street corner and tell jokes–at each other's expense–all day long. Written in this way, out of context, it doesn't sound funny. But watching these characters as they experience such trivial things during one long and frustrating day, these moments feel real and believable.

Two decades later and across an ocean, Lee's depiction of America's struggles with race, class and sex still felt fresh. The London crowd, filling up one of BFI Southbank's main cinemas, laughed openly and frequently at what I had assumed were very American comments and quips. The film's violent climax still packs a punch. "White people still ask me why Mookie threw the can through the window,' Lee recently told the Associated Press. "Twenty years later, they're still asking me that....In 20 years, no person of coloUr has ever asked me why.'

For more thoughts on the film's 20th anniversary, read this interview with Spike Lee on the Root.

~ GARY MOSKOWITZ