American filmmaker Spike Lee is participating for the fourth time in the Montreal International Black Film Festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.e anniversary. The honorary president of the FIFBM will give a conference this Wednesday, at 7:30 p.m., at L’Olympia. Our columnist spoke with him.
Do the Right Thingwhich was released 35 years ago, has a special place in the pantheon of films that have marked my cinephile. I was 16 when I discovered this brilliant tragicomedy, which deals with social tensions, the hatred that breeds hatred and the constantly boiling pot of racism that eventually explodes.
Spike Lee, 32, imposed a new rhythm, a new way of doing things, with his close-ups of sweaty faces, his famous floating “dolly shots”, his saturated colors and the thunderous music of Public Enemy. Do the Right Thing was a unique and innovative statement that showed the United States from a different angle, in the sights of a brilliant and visionary artist.
« C’est un film qui, je crois, est encore pertinent aujourd’hui. Il n’a pas vieilli et il a gagné en stature », constate Spike Lee. Do the Right Thing avait suscité la controverse aux États-Unis à sa sortie à l’été 1989. Des commentateurs conservateurs craignaient qu’il provoque des émeutes et Lee leur avait répondu avec son franc-parler habituel.
Écarté du palmarès de la compétition du Festival de Cannes, ce chef-d’œuvre n’avait pas été nommé à l’Oscar du meilleur film, qui a plutôt récompensé Driving Miss Daisy, un film mineur de Bruce Beresford portant lui aussi sur les questions raciales.
« Chaque fois qu’il y a un film sur un chauffeur, je perds l’Oscar ! », dit-il en riant. Il fait référence à Green Book de Peter Farrelly, une autre œuvre banale sur le racisme qui a remporté en 2019 l’Oscar du meilleur film devant l’excellent BlacKkKlansman. Le film mettant en vedette John David Washington – fils de Denzel Washington, grand ami de Spike Lee – a valu à l’auteur-cinéaste son seul Oscar à ce jour, pour le scénario adapté (si l’on fait exception de l’Oscar honorifique qu’il a reçu en 2015).
L’artiste de 67 ans a un rire contagieux. Il me parle en visioconférence depuis les bureaux de sa compagnie de production, 40 Acres and a Mule (d’après la promesse faite aux esclaves libérés avant la guerre de Sécession). À quelques coins de rue d’où Spike, né Shelton Jackson Lee, a grandi à Brooklyn après sa petite enfance à Atlanta, la ville où il a entrepris ses études de cinéma.
A-t-il l’impression que la situation des Afro-Américains a évolué depuis l’électrochoc Do the Right Thing ? « J’ai écrit le film en 1988 et il y a des choses qu’on a eu l’impression d’annoncer. On parlait de réchauffement climatique, de gentrification. La mort de Radio Raheem ressemble à celle de George Floyd. Mais d’un autre côté, qui aurait pensé en 1988 qu’il y aurait un jour un président noir comme Obama ? Qui aurait pensé que nous aurions bientôt une femme noire à la présidence des États-Unis ? J’y vais avec la règle du one drop [une goutte] “She’s really black!” he said, still laughing, about Kamala Harris.
“This is a historic election”
Wearing a New York Yankees cap and bomber jacket, his famous round glasses screwed on his nose, he sometimes walks toward his computer camera with a knowing look, as if he were about to confide in me. “I’m joking,” he says, “but this is serious.”
He is, of course, talking about the November 5 U.S. presidential election. “As I get older, I see that we take two steps forward and one step back. But we have to continue to – excuse the pun – do the right thing [faire la bonne chose] ! »
He campaigns with his partner, lawyer Tonya Lewis Lee, for the Democratic candidate, conducting interviews (with Stevie Wonder and Bill Clinton, among others) and participating in charity events.
I’ll make a sports analogy: this is not the time to sit on the sidelines. You have to be in the game ! The coach called me and here I am!
Spike Lee on Kamala Harris’s election campaign
He raised half a million dollars last week in Brooklyn with Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff. “Dougie Doug told me, ‘Spike, this is going to be close.’ I’m a huge sports fan and there are so many times when I thought my team was ahead and it was over. It’s not over until the final whistle. This is a historic election, maybe the most important in the history of this country. At the same time, Trump is already saying that if he loses, it’s because the election is rigged. These are scary times, but we can’t let up. People have to vote.”
PHOTO VALÉRY HACHE, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Spike Lee at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021
I tell him that on the night of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, I was in Grant Park in Chicago, at the invitation of my friend and colleague Alexandre Sirois. “I was there too,” he says. “It was moving, wasn’t it?” I think back to those African-American women who were crying hot tears because they couldn’t believe their eyes, and I still get chills.
Hope has given way, eight years later, to cynicism and disenchantment. I can understand, I confessed to Spike Lee, that Donald Trump was elected the first time, out of a taste for change. But knowing now what kind of man he is, how can Americans consider re-electing him?
“Brother, you’re not the only one! I travel with my films all over the world and people I don’t know ask me: “But how could you elect this man?” That said, there are many countries that have made a shift to the right. There are dictators elsewhere. It’s a global problem. The fact remains that this guy says he wants to be president for life! January 6 [2021]he attempted a coup against the United States government. And these idiots act like they have amnesia! People died! And he and his supporters act like it never happened.”
The filmmaker of Crooklyn and of Bamboozled believes that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the judgment Roe v. Wade on abortion rights could be very costly for Donald Trump with the female electorate. “This asshole [motherfucker] named his boys to the Supreme Court! For life!”
A social and political activist, a history and sports aficionado, Spike Lee has always taken the pulse of the United States in his films, his famous ” Spike Lee joints “, of She’s Gotta Have It has Da 5 Bloods through his numerous documentaries (including the remarkable 4 Little Girls). But it is his love of cinema that guided the production of his next feature-length fiction film, which should be released “next spring or fall.”
“It’s a reinterpretation – not a remake! – ofBetween Heaven and Hell [High and Low] by Akira Kurosawa, with Denzel Washington. The dynamic duo! This is the fifth time we’ve worked together. In order: Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man… » Part of the impressive filmography of one of the great masters of contemporary American cinema.
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