Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

Tag: #spikelee

  • Spike Lee Over the Years

    Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1988) garnered critical acclaim and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. As such, I was curious about the director behind such a celebrated movie. It was brought up in class that he made commercials for the Air Jordans before he made Do the Right Thing, so I found one of them, titled “It’s Gotta Be the Shoes”.

    This Nike Commercial (1991) stars Michael Jordan and Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon, a character from another of his movies She’s Gotta Have It (1986). In it, Mars asks MJ what makes him the best player in the universe, eventually concluding, “It’s gotta be the shoes!” It’s a question of why Spike Lee, a director primarily concerned with critiquing cultural ideology, made these types of commercials in the first place. Was it money? Exposure? Whatever the reason, Spike Lee’s commercials were credited as the main reason Nike and Air Jordans became so popular, with millions of dollars in shoe sales. One such article tells a fun anecdote about Lee’s time working with MJ: https://www.basketballnetwork.net/off-the-court/when-michael-jordan-called-spike-lee-an-mfer-in-1988

    Spike Lee founded a production company called 40 Acres and a Mule, and is still active in the film industry today. He has made several documentaries and a TV show called She’s Gotta Have It (2017-2018) based off of his earlier movie of the same name. He also taught a filmmaking course at Harvard in 1991, later joining NYU/Tisch as part of their faculty in 1993. He was appointed as Artistic Director in 2002, and still works there today a tenured professor in the graduate film program.

    Spike Lee’s Production Company/Main Source Used: https://www.40acres.com/new-landing/about/

  • Reading the Ending of Do the Right Thing

    The ending of Do the Right Thing feels deliberately unresolved, and I think that uncertainty is the point. Instead of offering a clear moment of reconciliation between Sal and Mookie, Spike Lee frames their final interaction as something uneasy yet realistic considering the violence that had just occurred. They start on opposite sides of the frame, both carrying the weight of the night before, and they only move toward each other when Mookie requests his paycheck. Their proximity at the end feels like it’s out of necessity rather than forgiveness. The blocking further suggests that survival in this neighborhood depends on navigating relationships that are never fully repaired but still necessary, showing how daily life will continue even when trust has been broken. 

    The decision to show the photo of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. being pinned on the Wall of Fame deepens this tension but does offer a slight sense of resolve in my opinion. Sal’s wall has functioned as a literal barrier between understanding and representation throughout the film and was the actual trigger for the violent and unjust ending. By adding the photo, the pizzeria, despite having been burned down, is finally acknowledging the broader cultural reality that Sal and his family resisted: that different cultures can coexist in the same space, and that tension does not always have to escalate into violence. It becomes a quiet but powerful image that complicates the idea of whose stories get displayed and validated.

    Because of this, I do not read the ending as Spike Lee successfully working the system. It feels more like an honest recognition that harmony is difficult to achieve and takes time, even when people of different races and backgrounds are living and working alongside one another. I’m still left wondering: does the film go against a complete sense of closure because repairing systemic harm is never simple/straightforward, or is it asking us to rethink why we expect reconciliation in the first place?