While searching for relevant sources, I encountered an article that interviewed both the cinematographer Ernest R Dickerson and Giancarlo Esposito (who plays Buggin’ Out in the film). https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/22/how-we-made-do-the-right-thing-spike-lee
I found myself wondering while watching Do the Right Thing how a film is shot in one location and the challenges that accompany that. Dickerson answers this question in the interview, which I thought was really interesting:
“I knew our biggest challenge was going to be shooting over eight weeks and making it look like one day. We looked for a street that ran north-south. Since the sun travels east to west, one side would always be in shade. That way, when we had to shoot on cloudy days, I could just make it look like we were in the shaded side of the street. That really saved us, because the first two weeks we had a lot of rain. Some shots where it looks sunny – you can actually see rain if you look really hard.”
Dickerson also talked about the films that inspired him and Spike Lee in the making of this film: The Third Man (specifically for the canted angles), Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, and The Red Shoes. The final three movies were all worked on by cinematographer Jack Cardiff whose use of color inspired Dickerson.
On the other hand, Giancarlo Esposito speaks on the attitude of the film industry regarding race during the time of filming:
“My background is half-Italian and in those days, being a lighter-skinned black man, I couldn’t get cast as a white person or a black person. So I was playing Spanish roles. This follows me to this day: a lot of people are shocked to realise Buggin’ Out and Gus Fring [from Breaking Bad] are the same person. So Spike gave me the opportunity to play black.”
I thought this was particularly interesting as the film is about racial tension in two specific demographics but this highlights tensions and stereotypes beyond that.
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