Father Geek here, Harry's been in the tub an hour washing off Las Vegas, he arrived in Austin about 10:30 last night, his plane was suppose to arrive at 7:06. Well, here's a report on Spike Lee and the Talk he gave last night over at the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. It contains stuff Lee fans already know, plus some new stories, but to those of you not familar with the man's story this is a really good introduction to him... Gotta drag Harry outta bathtub... must get to SXSW Film and Music Festival...
Father Geek,
I didn't see Harry at the LBJ Auditorium tonight, so I assume he's still in Vegas. Although I'd rather be at Showest, being in Austin tonight to hear Spike Lee speak was cool as well. Anyway, hope you can use the info.
Spike started the evening with his success story, so to speak, or how he came to be a filmmaker. Most of it is common knowledge to movie fanatics, but I'll go through it anyway. Spike's story is slightly different from most of the other "independent" filmmakers. Instead of the idea of one being destined to be a director since birth, as most neophyte filmmakers feel they are, Spike didn't think about going into film until his sophomore year in college. In fact, when he attended movies as a child and young adult, he just viewed them as merely entertainment. He never looked up to any film or filmmaker during that time in his life, as many young filmmakers look to sex, lies and videotape/Soderbergh, Pulp Fiction/Tarantino, Jaws/Spielberg etc... today. In the summer of 1977 Spike returned home from Morehouse College and entertained himself with his Super 8 and whatever he found to shoot(Last Hustle in Brooklyn). When he went back to school, he decided he wanted to make films. However, Morehouse didn't have his desired major, so he took some mass communication classes at Clark College. But even at Clark, he couldn't concentrate solely on film. Therefore, he applied to USC, UCLA, and NYU film schools. He ended up choosing NYU mainly due to housing and transportation problems. However, at the same time his scores on the GRE were below USC and UCLA requirements. He is today still opposed to standardized testing, as most of us are who have taken them time and again for one reason or the other, regardless of scoring high or low.
He then bashed film schools that choose what gets produced, and praised film schools that let it's students choose. He believes the only way to learn how to be a filmmaker is to make films, and USC and UCLA restrict that process. At NYU one gets a little more freedom, which results in a better school for independent filmmakers. Although, even at NYU, he encountered negative feedback due to the content and messages of his films. On this he said, "it might be blasphemous to say this but, I didn't expect the teachers to teach me, all I wanted was access to the equipment." He feels that film schools' degrees are useless unless one has a film to accompany it.
He filmed three films his first year. The third, called The Answer, was about a young African American Screenwriter hired to write and direct a remake of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation. Needless to say, this didn't go over well with NYU faculty who were appalled that a student would attack the "father of cinema." They wanted him expelled, but he had TA status which kept him there until graduation. He also mentioned the hush, hush fact that Birth of a Nation was used to recruit KKK members, and that black males got lynched or castrated due to the film.
His thesis film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, won the Student Academy Award. Afterwards, he felt Hollywood would start knocking down his door, while his agent was also advocating that falsehood by telling him to sit tight and wait for it to happen. After a financial low point, he finally got motivated to do something himself. He didn't feel he would be accepted in Hollywood in the early eighties as a black filmmaker with the kind of films he had in mind. So, he decided to try to make a movie independently. After fully assembling a cast and crew, the money never came through, and finally embarrassingly abandoned the project.
At this point in his career, he could've easily given up. But he reviewed his mistakes on the first film, which was mainly a slightly complicated and expensive attempt for a first feature film, and tried again with a smaller idea, She's Gotta Have It. It was shot in 12 days, and written based on an extremely low budget($10,000 in the beginning). He mentioned the critics idea that, "it was genius having people talking to the camera," when actually it was done that way to save money. They saved cans and bottles to gain extra funds during the shoot and ended up scraping up enough money to buy three extra rolls of film. Then to add to the budget, they let anybody who contributed money to the film receive a credit. At the end of production the film cost $175,000 hard earned dollars and turned 8.5 million. Along with Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle, She's Gotta Have It opened up new doors for African Americans in film. However, Spike doesn't feel allot of the films being made today with African American content are progressive.
One of Spike Lee's goals from the beginning was to "Put the richness of the African American culture on screen." At the same time, he doesn't want to compartmentalize it, but show how the African American culture is a large part of America, and not so much of a "minority" as it seems. Another one of his goal's was to develop a body of work, and not become one of those directors that takes years to put out a follow up film. In other words, he didn't want to become lazy.
He addressed the statements that were made after She's Gotta Have It that proclaimed, "he's a black Woody Allen", by saying "the only thing we have in common, is being from Brooklyn, I'm taller than him a little bit, and we're both season ticket holders for the New York Knicks, but stops right around there."
He addressed the influential power of media by using Bruce Lee films as an example. Since kids come out of Bruce Lee or other martial arts films kicking and throwing punches etc, then they must be influenced by other violent acts on screen as well. He also feels the reason America is the most dominant country in the world is because of American movies, TV, and radio. And now, due to this influence, some media is being attacked for it's messages, Natural Born Killers, Taxi Driver, and Basketball Diaries to name a few. This has caused studios to be reluctant to take on projects that cause controversy. In his new film, Bambooloo(a satire about television shot on video with Damon Wayans among others), there is a kidnapping which involves the internet. New Line's lawyers don't want Spike to use the word "internet" due to possible law suits that might emerge similar to the Basketball Diaries/Columbine situation. Spike feels that filmmakers should stay away from gratuitous violence but, it ultimately is not the responsibility of the filmmakers to hide the truth by censoring their own work. Spike would like to see other things be addressed, like the NRA, before attacking artists.
He then took questions, which I felt most of them should have never been asked. A large percentage of people just wanted to get up and plug themselves, "Spike, I have a screenplay," "Spike, I'm an actress." Blah, blah, blah. While others were things such as, "Spike, what do I do after I graduate from film school," "Spike, how can I break into Hollywood." But a few were okay. The comments he made on questions that stuck out to me are summarized in the following:
He feels affirmative action is still a much needed thing, and will continue to be needed until the playing field is level. Some of the filmmakers that influenced him are Billy Wilder, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Akira Kurasowa, Terrence Malick among others. He feels anything with Master P in it is Blaxploitation. The only one of his films that his five year old daughter has seen all the way through is Crooklyn, the others will wait for an older age. BET is a crime against television, and it needs a good competitor before it will produce worth while programing. Jackie Robinson continues to lack the funding necessary for production. And last but not least, Austin is the coolest place to make a film. Okay, he didn't word it exactly like that, but he did give Austin credit for becoming a third production town, aside from NY and LA.
I must say, I was disappointed in the kinds of questions that were asked. I'm actually kind of disappointed in my school(UT). I mean, you get a shot to ask Spike Lee almost anything, and people chose to bullshit instead. His speech was not exactly amazing, but it was still cool as shit for him to come and give us a get a chance to hear him speak in person and get to ask questions. So, can't we at least get our money's worth(tickets ranged from $30-$75) by asking good questions.
Well, that about wraps it up. Hope you can use the info. Oh yeah, I guess you can call me the Lazy Eyed Psycho. So until next time, it's frickin freezing in here Mr. Bigglesworth.
-Lazy Eyed Psycho
