Lindo, as the father, is a softer touch, bringing home ice cream and cake. Woodhouse is a stringent mother who would have no qualms waking her children up in the middle of the night if they failed to do the dishes. Three brothers and a sister are constantly bickering. Delroy Lindo and Alfre Woodhouse play the parents of the Carmichael clan. He wrote the script with his sister Joie and his brother Cinque. Whether this time ever existed is up for debate, but this is how Lee chooses to depict an episodic look at childhood memories. Also, Read: A Spike Lee Joint: Crooklyn (1994) At a time when the epitome of violence was a punch to the jaw, the most nefarious drug users were glue huffing burn-outs and shoplifting kids were given a moral lesson rather than being dealt with to the full extent of the law. It is a nostalgia-seeped look at a more innocent time.
This ignites youthful energy that permeates Lee’s film. An opening sequence sees a group of young kids playing street games on an inner-city block. This is not how Spike Lee remembers his Brooklyn neighborhood in his semi-autobiographical film Crooklyn. If you watch any film from 1970s American cinema, New York is depicted as a grimy, dangerous place. A tribute to his father, Bill Lee, a jazz musician who provided the music for the film’s soundtrack. However, its improvised dialogue, long jazz sequences and a typical virtuoso visual style (including a 360 dolly shot as well as his trademark double dolly shot) from Lee makes Mo’ Better Blues an essential Spike Lee joint. Mo’ Better Blues is seen as a low-key entry in Lee’s filmography, coming out off the back of Do the Right Thing (1989). His greedy approach to his love life has left him balancing two lovers, and the jazz community is a small one. Related Read to Best Spike Lee Films: Choose Trainspotting (1996)īleek is no perfect character himself. Lee’s film is a reflection on this approach. Despite these negative influences, Bleek tries to find happiness in life through mastery. Nightclub owners hold him to unfair contracts, band managers with gambling addictions need to be bailed out regularly and unreliable bandmates try to steal the stage and his woman. While Bleek doesn’t have the drink and drug addictions usually attributed to cinematic jazz musicians, his life is hampered by his commitment to his form.
In this film, Lee depicts musicianship as a destructive as well as a creative force. Bleek (Denzel Washington), an expert trumpet player and leader of the successful nightclub jazz band ‘The Bleek Quintet’. Mo’ Better Blues is a film about dedication and an obsessive commitment to artistry. This list is a tribute to a cinematic great, 10 Best Spike Lee Films in descending order: 10. At 64, his four-decade strong career shows no sign of slowing down.
What happens next for Spike Lee is anyone’s guess. Most recently, Netflix released Da 5 Bloods (2020) during the pandemic, to critical acclaim (acclaim not exactly shared by this writer). However, in recent years Lee has returned to the forefront of America’s consciousness with two successful films BlacKkKlansman (2018), for which he won his first Oscar for Adapted Screenplay. Since the turn of the millennium, Lee’s filmography has been dotted with hits and misses.
Only Woody Allen was a more prolific American filmmaker in that decade. He announced himself on the world stage when Do the Right Thing (1989) premiered at Cannes. See our list of movies below, and for additional recommendations read our roundup of Christopher Nolan, and Martin Scorsese films that you should watch.Since his debut feature, She’s Gotta Have (1986) Spike Lee has solidified himself as the most prolific and controversial American filmmaker of his generation. In the spirit of Lee’s latest honor, we put together a roster of Lee’s movies that you can own stream on Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and more platforms. The celebration, which was delayed a year because of the pandemic, included an excerpt from Lee’s HBO documentary “Epicenters 9/11→2021½” (currently streaming on HBO Max). Last week, Film at Lincoln Center presented Lee with the Chaplin Award during the 46th Chaplin Award Gala, held at New York City’s Alice Tully Hall. The Brooklyn-born auteur is known for a unique storytelling style, and of course, his signature double-dolly shot (where the character remains stationary while the background moves), which he’s used in several films including “Mo’ Better Blueseppice” and “Malcolm X.” If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Indiewire may receive an affiliate commission.įrom “Do the Right Thing” to “Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee’s film catalog is packed with classics that have shaped Black cinema, and film at large.
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