Do The Right Thing

Ive only ever had one exposure to Spike Lee, and it was from my dad who worked on set with him and said he was horrible to him- so of course ive never watched any of his stuff and have to mention that whenever someone bring him up now. I have thought about watching Do the Right Thing for the same reason as everyone else, it has 4.4 stars on letterboxed. However, based on the reading this week I feel like I already have seen the whole film. They broke down the scenes and talked about the unique style of the film that helps make it so popular today. Specifically the notion that, “Lee weaves his many stories into a whole.” This seems to be a key definer of this movie, whether on letterboxed or the reading – people are praising how Lee was able to put so many ideas together into one and make it work. Along with this the reading goes on to praise the community within the film, and says that despite there being so many characters to focus on – Lee did a great job of using a formal narrative structure on each one. This reading is a praise of how Spike Lee was able to balance multiple characters and their stories and weave them all into one to create a fluid story about community and life within their neighborhood while also battling conflicts. It goes on to compliment Spikes ability to stay on the 180 degree line and utilize continuity editing despite the switch in focuses. The film is seemingly revered very highly as the reading talks about the flow in and out of traditional narrative structure by mentioning how Spike, despite having 8 main characters, was able to give each a conflict and goal as if it was just 1 character. Then talks about how Spike fades out of narrative structure by not giving all 8 of the main characters “clear cut” goals that bring them to a conflict. I believe based off this reading that the because Spike deviates from the norm, the film is what it is and is so well received, he has created something that people were not used to seeing, it was unique. By doing that, this movie has remained something that people all these years later still are shocked if you have not seen it because of its lasting relevance. Spike Lee, despite being rude to my dad, seemed to have a vision and it is one I can appreciate as he utilizes these aspects of film making to produce a movie that navigates complex themes while using complex film and narrative structures, which is (unfortunately, always got to side with my dad) very very impressive.