DO THE RIGHT THING (SPIKE LEE, 1989)
I want tonight to show you 12 clips from the film we just saw, which should illustrate most of the terms and techniques you read about for this week in your textbook. These will be examples of the film’s cinematography: that is, camera lenses, camera angles, and camera movement. And also examples of the film’s composition of individual shots: that is, the arrangement of people and objects within a film frame. Another term I’ll be using to discuss these matters is “mise en scene,” which is a French term referring to what we see within a film frame (as opposed to editing, which refers to cutting back and forth between different shots). And finally, we’ll see—and hear—how sound helps support meaning in the film—music (both on and off screen), dialogue, sound effects, and silence.
Our purpose in this class is to appreciate how a director creates effects in film and uses the film medium to tell a story. Knowing this, we can better understand how film works on us and more fully enjoy seeing a good film (and can more easily distinguish a good film from a not so good one)
1. As we look at this first film clip, remember that Do the Right Thing takes place on the hottest day of the year. Thus the director faced the problem of how to get across the idea of heat to the audience. He did this in a number of ways. First, he did it through LIGHTING AND THE COLORS IN THE MISE EN SCENE—especially the color red. Do you remember, for instance, that very red brick wall against which the three middle aged men sat talking? Lee also gave us the impression of heat through DIALOGUE AND MUSIC (I’m thinking of the tune, “Can’t Stand the Heat”) Note in this clip I’m about to play, Senor Love Daddy’s line, “The forecast for today. Hot.”
In another vein entirely: DTRT has many characters and calls for a good deal of ensemble acting. A second thing to look for in this clip is the way we get many of the characters introduced in an economical fashion. Each is doing something characteristic of himself, so the audience can begin to identify them and keep them straight, which is a challenge in a film with so many characters. Smiley is immediately identified with his photos, Mookie is identified with his pay, and Senor Love Daddy with his talking.
Note that there are several characters, like Senor Love Daddy, who are only peripherally involved in the action, but who comment on the action sometimes from a place outside the action. I’m thinking also of Da Mayor and Mother Sister. This commentary is in the tradition of ancient Greek tragedy, where the plays featured what was called a CHORUS, a group of actors that stood outside the action, but commented on the action, almost like a narrator or an interpreter of the action. We hear, for instance, Senor Love Daddy’s speech in the middle of the film about racial epithets. We hear Da Mayor tell Mookie, “Always do the right thing.”
I’m going to begin with the first sequence of the movie after the credits. Notice, in terms of CAMERA AND CAMERA MOVEMENT That we get first a TIGHT CLOSE UP on Senor Love Daddy’s lips—which is appropriate since he is after all a DJ. Then the Camera CRANES back, PANS left, and CRANES IN on Da Mayor. Notice the camera angle in the next shot, of Smiley: a LOW ANGLE SHOT. The low angle shot is often used to show a character who’s powerful or fearsome, or meant to be respected. But here I think the low angle shot is used ironically, given Smiley’s condition, his stutter and limp. He’s a vulnerable person in the neighborhood, and sometimes a comic character in the film. Notice finally the camera movement in the shot after that, which is of Mookie counting his money. This shot is done with a HAND HELD CAMERA. Did you notice how the image was slightly unsteady and it looked as if someone was just walking into the room and around the bed. Someone was. And he was holding a camera.
1. SENOR LOVE DADDY, NEIGHBORHOOD, SMILEY, MOOKIE (4:25-7:31)
2. In the next sequences we’ll see first an example of a LONG SHOT. Many sequences especially early in a film, and often the first shot of a film, begin with a long shot that’s called an ESTABLISHING SHOT, which “establishes” the setting and engrains it in the viewer’s mind. In this case the establishing shot is a long shot of the exterior of Sal’s Pizzeria. Note the background against which Sal and Pino are talking. We see in the mise en scene a locked storefront. This tells us not only that we’re in an urban neighborhood that has crime, but also perhaps indicates symbolically that Pino feels trapped in his life and work here, as the ensuing action demonstrates. Notice that the dialogue is again about heat, and also about hatred, which is a recurrent theme in and subject of the film.
Notice too Pino’s mode of dress. He wears black here, but in the scenes that follow, he changes into his white sleeveless t shirt for work, his stereotypical “Italian American restaurant clothing,” if you will. At the end of the film, you’ll see he’s in black again. In fact, all the costuming in the film is done very carefully and helps characterize. Note Da Mayor’s rumpled white suit, Sal’s Hawaiian shirt, and Mookie’s Brooklyn Dodgers uniform # 42, the number of Jackie Robinson, the first black in major league baseball.
The shot of the camera following Mookie as he walks is a TRACKING shot, in which the camera moves parallel to the action. It’s thus named because in early days of film the camera was sometimes mounted on tracks. The exchange between Mookie and Mother Sister is an alternation of LOW ANGLE AND HIGH ANGLE SHOTS, here used not ironically, but traditionally to show that Mother Sister is the elder, respected in the neighborhood, and Mookie the younger person.
2. SAL’S EXTERIOR (8:32), INTERIOR, MOOKIE WALKING (10:35-11:11)
3. The next sequence I’m going to show you is the introduction of Radio Raheem. You’ll note that in this shot and in other shots of RR and of other characters in the film, the camera is sometimes slanted to one side. This is called a CANTED FRAME or DUTCH ANGLE SHOT. Sometimes it creates a feeling in the audience that things are off balance or out of whack. In this case it makes RR look more fearsome. Other times, it’s just a nice stylistic touch, as we’ll see in the scene between Da Mayor and Mother Sister that follows
Keep in mind, too, that at the time the film was shot, the music that would be on RR’s boom box had not been chosen yet. So the actors had to be very skillful to imagine this music that was the cause of so much of the action in the film. The actor who played RR said that he had to be careful not to walk in a certain rhythm or pace that might prove to be off the beat once the music was chosen. This is surely evidence of the importance of sound in film, and in this film in particular.
The last thing I’d like you to notice in this shot is how music functions in this series of sequences. First we get RR’s rap music, then the radio in the background in the Korean grocery. In the scene that follows between da Mayor and Mother Sister, we get scored background music (written and scored by Spike Lee’s father, Bill Lee). This music sounds to my ear something like traditional Black spirituals (appropriate for these two characters from another, older generation). Then when we cut to a scene between Tina and her mother, loud Spanish language radio is in the background. Thus four scenes, four different kinds of sounds, the contrast among the sounds helping underscore the setting of each scene.
3. RADIO RAHEEM (13:47), DA MAYOR AND MOTHER SISTER (14:50), TINA AND HER MOTHER (15:58)
4. Next I want to show you an easy example of how a director can create OFF SCREEN SPACE to make meaning in a shot. In this shot, Mookie is delivering pizzas and he meets Smiley. Mookie has already complained about having to walk up six flights of steps with six pizzas. Look at the mise en scene in this next shot. Notice how the stairs end at the top of the frame, implying that they could go on for several more flights. A similar technique is used later in the love scene between Mookie and Tina, when we see only Tina’s legs as she stands naked on the bed. The rest of her body is implied: it’s in off screen space.
4. MOOKIE AND SMILEY IN TENEMENT (23:04) (freeze frame and talk)
5. One mark of a good director, a film artist, is that he or she knows how to use the camera to tell a story independent of dialogue. Pay attention to the camera movement in this next sequence, the confrontation between Radio Raheem and the Hispanic men. First we get a close up of the needle on Senor Love Daddy’s record player, then a PAN to the box of the Hispanics who are playing that music, then a PAN to RR’s box, then a TILT shot, a LOW ANGLE SHOT of RR, then a PAN back to the Hispanics.
We also get composition that tells a story in one shot. You’ll see the radio and the Hispanic man dominant in the frame, the red car underneath the radio, and in the background the red neighborhood, with kids playing on the street as if this confrontation between these young men and these two ethnic groups is perfectly common.
The last shot is a LONG SHOT of RR walking away triumphant, and if you look carefully you’ll see Da Mayor asleep in the corner of the screen. He, of course, is the figure in the neighborhood who, had he been awake, would have intervened to try to calm everyone down before violence ensued. He is the peacemaker because in his life, as we later find out, he has seen too much trouble.
So a lot of the meaning in this sequence is created through composition.
5. CONFRONTATION BETWEEN RR AND HISPANIC YOUTHS (32:21-34:00)
6. Next is a simple example of a ZOOM SHOT, in this case the camera zooms back (not in on Buggin out’s shoes after Clifton, the white “urban pioneer,” accidentally steps on them. Let’s take a quick look
6. CLIFTON STEPS ON BUGGIN OUT’S JORDANS (34:34)
Did you notice again the careful costuming? Clifton the white man is wearing the jersey of Larry Bird, a pro basketball star who is white (as opposed of course to Michael Jordan). All this is very intentional on the part of the director, who said about this scene, “I have nothing personally against Larry Bird; he’s just a white American icon,” which is why Spike Lee chose to use his name in this way. I’ll remind you too that this scene follows the one in which Mookie and Vito were having an argument about who is a better pitcher, the white Roger Clemens, or the black Dwight Gooden.
7. Take a look at the composition in this next sequence in which the gang of young blacks confront da Mayor and tell him he’s a bum. Notice how the blocking of the actors is consistent with the meaning of the shots. First we’ll see Da Mayor surrounded by the young blacks, three on one side of him and one on the other. The arrangement of the actors clearly shows that they overpower him. The scene also shows that these young people have little respect for their elders, which is certainly a theme in the movie as a whole, and that they have little knowledge of the history of their own people. Da Mayor, as we find out, knows of the segregation of the old South, of times even more desperate than these times depicted in the film.
7. THE FOUR YOUTHS AND DA MAYOR (42:18-44:18)
Note at the end of that sequence we see first a FOUR SHOT of the youths yelling at Da Mayor, then after three of them leave, we see the young woman in a ONE SHOT. The director’s trying to show us, I think, that the young woman is less convinced than the three boys that the Mayor is a bum. She’s moved somewhat by what the mayor tells her. You may remember that in the riot sequence at the end of the film, when Sal’s is burning, it’s this same young woman who stands alone yelling, “Stop, stop”—she’s wiser than the three boys. Here again the director is using pictures to help tell his story, to make this subtle point.
8. The next sequence I want to show you is an unusual one and an important one in the film. It’s the sequence in which various characters, one at a time, face a camera that dollies in on them spouting a horrible chain of racial or ethnic epithets. It’s important since it seems to epitomize the racial hatred of many characters in the film (consistent with what Spike Lee would likely argue is the attitude of racial intolerance in America). It’s important because of the message Senor Love Daddy delivers after the sequence, seeming to speak for the director and for the film (again, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy comments on the action). I also think in a strange way the sequence is humorous—in that these characters with their ignorant prejudices are made to truly look ridiculous! You’ll note here that Love Daddy rolls FORWARD on his chair toward the camera, a movement the opposite of the camera that DOLLIED IN on the other characters.
8 RACIAL EPITHET SEQUENCE AND SENOR LOVE DADDY’S RESPONSE
(47:44-49:00)
The thematic importance of this sequence to the film should be obvious to you—so obvious, in fact, that a studio executive suggested that Senor Love Daddy’s speech be at the end of the film. The sequence is unusual, too, in that it’s highly unusual in Hollywood films for characters to talk directly to the camera, almost as if they were talking to the audience. And fact it’s an unwritten rule that this never happens, except maybe in comedies with Woody Allen or Bob Hope (and also in music videos!). Talking to the audience, talking directly to the camera without the audience knowing that another character is present to be the intended listener, brings us out of the narrative dream that the film is. It seems to remind us that what we’re watching is not, after all, real, but only a movie, something that’s made up, produced.
9. The next example is a simple one: the use of a WIDE ANGLE LENS in a close up shot to cause distortion of the image. Look how menacing this technique makes Radio Raheem look in this climactic confrontation with Sal. We saw a similar shot of the punk in Suzie’s motel room in Touch of Evil.
9. Radio Raheem arguing with Sal (CLOSE UP/WIDE ANGLE LENS) (52:05-53:30)
10. The next sequence I want to show you is another example of how the COMPOSITION of the frame, what appears in the mise en scene, can help make meaning. In this shot, Sal is having a heart to heart talk with Pino, asking why there’s so much hatred in him. Notice that as the camera zooms forward slowly on the two men talking, that the back of a chair from another table seems to be placed directly between them, suggesting an obstacle between father and son. This is also an example of a LONG TAKE, in other words, the film rolls continuously for a long time before we cut to another shot. This feels appropriate here, slows down the pace of the action, appropriate for the shot. Notice two, as the take goes on, Pino leaves the restaurant to yell at Smiley. Sal is in the foreground, in the dark, Pino in the light of day, again showing the difference between the two. It’s as if they’re in two different worlds: the world of the black neighborhood outside the pizzeria in the light of day, vs. the Italian-American “island” inside.
10. SAL AND PINO TALKING IN THE PIZZERIA (57:30-1:02:16)
How different, how less meaningful would this shot have been if the conversation had taken place next to the juke box, as does the conversation between Mookie and Pino about Pino’s favorite black entertainers and athletes? How different would it have felt if we had cut back and forth in OVER THE SHOULDER SHOTS (which your text calls “shot/reverse shot”) between the two characters speaking, as the director does in most sequences in which characters are arguing?
11. As I mentioned, the director uses many means to get across to the audience the idea of the heat, which of course plays a role in causing the conflict throughout the film, and the violence at the end. We have the colors in the mise en scene, especially red; we have the mentioning of heat in the dialogue and the background music. In this next clip, note how lighting is used to create the feeling of heat, even at night
This clip is again a study in the director’s use of composition. Look how the actors are blocked in this scene of confrontation after Radio Raheem is killed. First we have Mookie standing with the three Italian-Americans, his employers, with the crowd of blacks off screen. Mookie of course leaves the frame. In the next shot we have Sal and his two sons standing alone. Then we see Da Mayor standing with the three white men, trying, as is his self appointed role in the neighborhood, to diffuse the conflict
11. MOOKIE, SAL, PINO, AND VITO BEFORE THE RIOT (1:36:18-1:38:32)
12. And in this final example, we see how Spike Lee has purposely appropriated an image from our culture that inherently carries meaning: the image of black people being the victims of fire hoses in the hands of whites. If you’ve seen films of sixties civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, you’ve seen this image. At the time was broadcast all over America and, along with the scenes of police dogs attacking peaceful demonstrators, it was perhaps one of the images most responsible for changing America’s collective mind about the necessity of the Civil Rights movement. In Do the Right Thing, it’s all happening again.
12. FIRE HOSES (1:41:43)
Finally, I’d like to encourage you in this class to stay through the final credits. If you watched the credits this time, you learned that the film was dedicated to the families of a number of black men killed by police in New York. You learned that the actress who played Jane is Spike Lee’s sister, that his father Bill Lee wrote the music for the film. You learned that the film was shot on location in the Bedford –Stuyvesant neighborhood of New York, not on a Hollywood studio backlot, which makes a difference. You learned that Branford Marsallis did all the saxophone work in the score. And you saw that in the last line of the credits Lee cited Malcolm X’s famous words about how to achieve racial justice: “by any means necessary.”
CLOSING
This is a lot of technical information for you to digest in a short time, so I recommend that you get the notes off my website.
What’s more, I think we’d be remiss if we only looked at the techniques this auteur director employed in the film. Film, as does all art, reaches us on an emotional level more than on an intellectual level. Do the Right Thing was a provocative, controversial, and powerful film when it was released in 1989, and it remains so for audiences today. What’s more, I believe it will remain so for audience’s in the future. In fact, I think your children and grandchildren will be studying DTRT in their film classes in future generations. It’s a film that will last, which is the mark of a work of art. Spike Lee has gone on to direct many more films since DTRT, but in my opinion, he hasn’t equaled DTRT
Like a lot of good art, DTRT poses more questions than it provides answers. One basic question it seems to ask us is, “Who is responsible for the death of Radio Raheem?” On the most immediate level, the police are responsible, as one character says: “They didn’t have to kill the boy.” But who else shares the blame, and who holds final responsibility. Is it, as Sal says at the end, Buggin Out who is to blame, the one who “started this whole mess,” who used his friend Radio Raheem to further his boycott of Sal’s which other characters found silly? Maybe Sal is partly right, but it’s surely not that simple. Is Radio Raheem himself responsible, since he wouldn’t turn his music down? Is Sal responsible, since he wouldn’t put up pictures of any black people on his wall of fame, and since he lost his temper and smashed the radio, precipitating the fight?
Or maybe, as Sal says, Mookie is partly responsible, since he wouldn’t intervene to quell the brewing conflict, the way that Da Mayor tried to after Radio Raheem was killed. Maybe Pino’s racism and hatred is to blame. Or maybe the politicians are to blame, who commission a blue ribbon panel to find out why these events took place, but seem not all that interested in bringing about real change.
Probably larger forces are at work. Perhaps to blame is the capitalist system that allows, as one of the three black men at the red wall says, the Korean grocer to immigrate to America and immediately open a business in the black neighborhood, while blacks perhaps are unable to secure bank loans to open a business in their own neighborhood. And probably to blame is the history of racism in America, which Da Mayor recounts for us.
The America depicted in Do the Right Thing is our America. Has America changed much since 1989 in terms of race relations? I don’t think, at least, that many of us would argue that economic opportunities for the underclass have improved over that time. The growing wealth gap between rich and poor would seem to argue otherwise.
And what of a solution to these pressing problems? Spike Lee was sure that he wanted to end his film with the quotes from the two black leaders on Smiley’s photograph. Martin Luther King argues that violence is self-defeating and won’t work. Malcolm X argues that violence in self defense is not violence at all, but intelligence. Spike Lee seems to be telling us that if the first method doesn’t work to correct the inequities of race and class that remain in America, we can bet that all of us, like the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant, will pay the price that the second, violent methods exact. Or as in the last words of the credits, “by any means necessary.”
DO THE RIGHT THING (SPIKE LEE, 1989)
THINGS TO LOOK FOR
We will see examples of all of the following in tonight’s film:
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Close up, tight close up
Close up with wide angle lens to distort the image
Long shot
Establishing shot
Canted frame/dutch angle shot
Dolly shot
Tracking shot
Hand held camera
Pan
Zoom shot
EDITING:
Long take
MISE EN SCENE
(What we see in the film frame)
--Creation of off screen space
--Costuming
--where does the director’s COMPOSITION create meaning
(Composition: the arrangement of settings, lighting, and subjects (including people) within the space of the film frame)
--SOUND
on screen sound (radios, boom box, radio station, Spanish
language, different accents and inflections)
off screen sound (musical score, pop music)
--Ways in which the film gives the impression of HEAT
(colors, lighting, dialogue, background music)
THEME
Who does the film want us to feel is responsible for what happens at the end of the film?
What questions does the film make you ask about race relations in America?