Do the Right Thing. 1989. Directed by Spike Lee.

(1/2/01-1/3/01)

Do the Right Thing is a rich, high-energy tapestry of life in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. It is loosely constructed, but it unfolds in a series of sharp, interesting scenes and a gallery of characters who hold our interst. And it has some sexy scenes thrown in for good measure. The music gives it a hip, up-to-date feel.

It all takes place on one very, very hot summer's day. Sal and his sons run a pizzeria which has been at the same location for 25 years. One of Sal's sons wants to get out of Bed-Stuy, but Sal says he is theer to stay. He is part of the neighborhood and most of the people like him. There are people in the neighborhood who have grown up eating Sal's pizza and he is proud of that.

Sal--obviously an Italian--has a gallery of pictures of famous Italian-Americans. One black teenager becomes very offended that there are no pictures of "brothers." This kid is looking for trouble and spends most of the time trying to organize a boycott that no one wants to join. Eventually he joins forces with another troublemaker and they storm into the pizzeria and start a fight. It turns into a riot or a near-riot with the police restraining the other one who dies in the struggle. Then the angry blacks erupt and totally destroy the pizzeria.

The film ends with quotations from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X about the use of violence as a means to achieve racial justice. King is against it and Malcolm X sees it as both justified and intelligent. Spike Lee apparently leaves this as an open question, something for the audience to ponder.

That is all well and good, but my feeling at the end was that the events of the film did not warrant the quotations and the importance that they seem to imply. This wasn't a film about any great struggle for justice. It was about two kids who were looking for trouble and one of them got killed. That is what can happen when you go looking for trouble. It doesn't have anything to do, really, with racial justice and it is unfortunate that blacks want to make it so.

However, I later read this in the program notes: "[I]n his [Spike Lee's] film, the riot is provoked by the murder of a black teenager by police" (emphasis added). That certainly wasn't the way that I saw it, but maybe that's how it was meant. If so, I don't think it was very successfully conveyed.

The word "murder" implies that the police deliberately intended to kill the young man. Why would they do that? For what reason? It looked to me like they were simply trying to restrain him as best they could and it was hard because he was big and energetic. They may have overestimated what amount of restraint was required, but that is a far cry from murder and to me it certainly falls under the heading of what can happen when you go looking for trouble.

There is so much else in this picture. Director Spike Lee himself plays Mookie, a black guy who works for Sal as a delivery boy. This is the first job that he has kept for over a month. He doesn't get along well with his employer. He gets involved with the relationship between Sal's two sons, basically trying to get one to stand up to the other. He drops in at his girlfriend's place for some quick sex when he should be working. He is chastized by his sister for not living up to his reponsibilities. (He has a son.)

At the end of the film it is Mookie who picks up a garbage can and hurls it through the window of the pizzeria, starting the riot. And the next day--unbelievably, as far as I was concerned--he comes back to ask Sal for his pay. He dismisses the damage by saying that the insurance company will pay for it. I couldn't believe it that Sal actually pays him--in fact, he overpays him, crumpling up the bills and throwing them at Mookie. Mookie throws the extra money back at Sal and they each sort of dare the other to take it. Mookie does, finally, reach down and scoop up the crumpled bills.

Sal is fond of Mookie's sister, Jade. She comes by and Sal is very nice to her. This makes Mookie very angry and he tells Jade to stay away and then tells Sal to leave his sister alone. There really isn't any reason to think that Sal has dishonorable intentions towards Jade.

All this is interesting in light of the fact that Mookie's girlfriend (and mother of his son) is not black. She is Hispanic. Mookie stays away from her as much as possible, except when he wants sex. He prefers to live with his sister.

The black women in this film come across as strong, dominant, maybe even authority figures (quite unlike the world of Bunuel's El). Jade talks to her brother in an authoritarian tone about his responsibilities and when "Da Mayor" rescues a child from being hit by a vehicle and tells his mother not to be too rough on him she tells him in a sharp, commanding tone that she won't let anyone tell her how to raise her child--even his father.

Da Mayor is a likable old man who comes across as a kind of wastrel or bum. He is fond of an older woman called "Mother Sister" who rebuffs his gentlemanly courtship. A tough young black male criticizes him for not having fought harder to feed his children. But Da Mayor has his positive qualities. He rescues the child from being hit and during the riot when Mother Sister sort of goes to pieces he puts his arms around her firmly and takes her home. He has gotten through her resistance.

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are wonderful to watch as Day Mayor and Mother Sister.

The kid that was killed by the police was called Radio Raheem. There is a scene where he shows someone gold knuckles (maybe brass, but I don't think so) with the words "love" and "hate" on them--similar to Robert Mitchum's use of the same words in Night of the Hunter. He tells the story of love and hate and how they struggle to dominate a person. This suggests a high level of spiritual awareness, but then he goes into Sal's pizzeria with a booming radio which he refuses to turn off. This shows zero respect for anyone else's experience and he just seems to be looking for a way to start trouble. He has a confrontation with Sal and his face is shown through a distorting lens, making it truly menacing. (This is repeated later.)

There is a wonderful montage of people of different ethnic backgrounds spewing forth racial epithets. The targets are not just blacks but Italians, Hispanics, Orientals. This is a hard-hitting vignette of rampant racism. In fact, the neighborhood we observe is full of different strains and the summer heat is--now that I think of it--a metaphor for the simmering tensions.

There is one very sexy scene where Mookie talks his girlfriend into having sex with him. He gets her to stand on the bed and undress. All we see is her legs on the bed and the panties drop over them. ("What do you have me standing on the bed for?" she asks.)

There is also a very nice scene where the young people in the neighborhood open up a fire hydrant and have fun getting each other wet. I liked some of the clothes the girls wore.

This film is full of interesting moments, interesting situations and things to think about. It is a rich film from beginning to end, but I don't think the ending was totally successful in that I can't see Raheem's death as a "murder" or the destruction of the pizzeria as being in the name of "racial justice."

Incidentally, I like the credits where two women alternately dance to Public Enemy's "Fight the Powers."