These are a series of quotes from a book of Spike Lee interviews.
“And Whoopi Goldberg, I’ve seen her on Phil Donahue and she was getting all defensive about the flak that she’s getting about Color Purple, telling black men that if they can’t take a joke, fuck it, and shit like that, and then she’s going to try and defend The Color Purple by saying, what about Purple Rain? What about when Prince had women thrown in garbage cans? That doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with Color Purple. And Whoopi Goldberg says that Steven Spielberg is the only director in the world that could have directed this film. Does she realize what she is saying? Is she saying that a white person is the only person that can define our existence? And now, she’s running around with goddamn blue contact lenses in her eyes, telling everybody she has blue eyes. I hope that people realize, that the media realizes, that she’s not a spokesperson for black people, especially when your running around with motherfucking blue contacts telling everybody that your eyes are blue. Tell her to read Toni Morrison’s The Blues Eye.”
On ‘Do The Right Thing.’
“I’m not advocating violence. Self-defense is not violence. We call it intelligence. People are full of shit. Israel could go out and bomb anybody, nobody says nothing. But when black people go out and protect themselves, then we’re militants, or we’re advocating violence.”
“We have narratives, we just don’t like to have narratives that show. They’re there, but we just don’t want to be out in front, because when narratives are out in front, the audience will be able to guess from watching the first ten minutes of the movie exactly where you’re going to go. We like to keep them guessing, just let there be work. I think that for the most part, not enough respect is given to audiences’ intelligence. They’re just spoon-fed everything.”
“When I was becoming a filmmaker I knew it would be harder for me to be a black filmmaker-to be a filmmaker because I was black. But I realized that you just have to be two or three-four-times better. The same thing as any black athlete. They got to be better than the white boy to make the team. You don’t sit there and brood about it. This is something you just know, growing up black. It’s a given. The problem starts when people say that’s a given and then use that as the excuse.”
Have you ever felt Jungle Fever?
“No. I’ve never had a relationship with a white woman.”
(On Jungle Fever) Your step mother is white, do you think she will take the issues of the film as a personal slight?
“What’s she gonna do-beat me? I’m a grown man.”
“When I went to film school, I knew I did not want to have my films shown only during Black History Month in February or at libraries.”
“I was an instigator as a kid. I just like to make people think, stir em up. What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t want white women. I don’t need the trouble. I don’t like that shit. And it’s way too many fine black women out there.”
“Black people can’t be racist. Racism is an institution. Black people don’t have power to keep hundreds of people from getting jobs or the vote. Black people didn’t bring nobody else over in boats. They had to add shit to the Constitution so we could get the vote. Affirmative action is about finished in this country now. It’s through. And black people had nothing to do with that, those kinds of decisions. So how can black people be racist when that’s the standard? Now, black people can be prejudiced. Shit, everybody’s prejudiced about something. I don’t think there will be an end to prejudice. But racism, that’s a different thing entirely.”
“I think a black man is more qualified to direct a movie about black people. Now, I do think black people are qualified to direct movies about white people, because the white world surrounds us. What do white people see of black people? Look at what they have us do in movies. ‘Right on, jive turkey!’
(On seeing movies as a kid and the magic that makes them want to make films.)
“I think it’s bullshit. It’s just something almost every director says. I have never believed it. That’s just Hollywood bullshit, people saying that shit because it makes makin’ movies special, and the people who make movies special. The first time I went on a movie set, it didn’t look like nothin’ magical to me. It was the exact same thing I was doing on my student movies, only it was bigger and they were spendin’ more money. That’s what keeps black people out of movies-the idea that makin’ movies is some special thing, some calling or something. That’s what I’m about-demystifying movies. I want to do away with that bullshit.”
“One day Wim Wenders is going to get off at the wrong stop on the A-Train. He’s supposed to get off at 59th Street and he’s going to miss the stop, it’s going to be express – and get off on 125th street. And I’ll be waiting for his ass. [Laughs]. He’s going to need wings of desire. And you could say what you want, because I don’t plan to be in Germany anytime soon.”
Elvis Mitchell, a free lancer who was working on a story on Spike Lee remembers him.
“Lee has made my life miserable for the past couple of months. Every message Lee left on my answering machine began ‘Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me’ those deathless words followed by his trademark cackle.”
On people getting killed over Air Jordan’s he promoted.
“What the fuck? You think I’m happy black men are dying over shoes?”
“I don’t know why some Jewish people get upset when you say that there are a lot of Jewish people in the movie industry. That’s the truth. That’s like saying there are blacks in the NBA. That’s not making a judgement, that’s a fact.”
“I think America just really arrived at the point where it said, Look, we are tired of you niggers. You’ve got about as much as you’re gonna get from us, and that’s it. Period.”
“Malcolm X was a very complex person. There were three or four different Malcolm’s. He was constantly evolving, his outlook and his ideology, and always trying to seek the truth. If he found it, he was not scared of being called a hypocrite. If he found a higher truth, he would say, “I was wrong. All that stuff I said before is wrong, and this is what I believe.” That’s something that very few people do.”
“If homosexuals don’t think people call them ‘faggots’ and ‘homos,’ then they’re stupid.”
“Movie stars are what opens a film. That’s why some of these bums are allowed to get $20 million for a movie.”
“Black people getting together to invest in anything? That’s revolutionary.”
“I have problems with buffoons. Coonish type of humour. I find it disturbing that 95% of the shows dealing with African Americans are sitcoms.”
“He [Tarantino] said that he and Ricki Lake were the two most reverted white celebrities among the black community. Where did he get that from? Because Sam Jackson kisses his butt, that means black people love him? That’s wrong.”
“Any black man who is intelligent, opinionated and who doesn’t smile ‘ha ha, chee chee’ is continuously branded as difficult. I’m not difficult, I just know exactly what I want.”
“I think a lot of cinematographers light not for the movie, but for their fellow directors of photography.”
“I story board very little. I don’t mean that I just show up on the set and make things up, but I feel that storyboarding can sometimes lock you in too much. If it’s a big big shot, or you only have one or two takes, then storyboards can be helpful.”
“I always shoot with two cameras simultaneously, because it makes a great difference to the actors. Actors will eventually be spent if they keep giving their all while reading lines off screen.”
“I work very fast. I don’t like to wait around, and it’s always been that way. I shot She’s Gotta Have It in twelve days.”
“I don’t really like shooting on stages. When you shoot at a real location, it’s not fabricated, and you get that extra flavor of being there. I don’t mind if we have to make some adjustments because its a real location.”
“Not too many people get to make films. Number one, it costs so much money. And I think that that’s the reason why, as a people, we haven’t made the great inroads we’ve made [laughs] in the other arts. Because no money was needed for us to pick up a trumpet or whatever that instrument was. In filmmaking, it takes money. We have not produced our Duke Ellingtons yet, or Romare Beardens, Jacob Lawernces, or Toni Morrisons. It’s going to happen. We’re really in the infancy stage.”
On music playing over dialogue.
“I think that the human brain is a very wonderful thing. And one can talk on the phone and watch television at the same time. The human brain allows you to do many things at the same time.”
“To me, the favorite part of film making is the whole post-production, after the actors are out of there. Not just the actors. It’s the crew as much as the actors.”
“When I’m a director of a film, I think it’s dangerous to become attached to one character or another.”
“I don’t think things from the past should be swept under a rug just because they are offensive.”
“I was watching the show Girlfriends last week, and I mean, is the only thing black women can talk about is getting Fucked? And then the show had black men holding their Johnson’s and looking into the camera smiling. What white show has white men grabbing their nuts and smiling into the camera? And why do all black people have to sing and dance in the opening? The subtext is, “Lord we’re so happy to be on TV.”
“I feel gangsta rap evolved to a modern day minstrel show. You ever watch BET?”
Do you have any expectations for tonight’s third debate you’d like to share? Will you be watching?
What sane, red blooded American would miss Game Six between the Yankees and the Mariners to determine if there’s gonna be a subway series?! Miss that for the debate? Sheeeet….hell, no! I know who I’m gonna vote for. I’m wathin’ the game.”
Why did you do this film with MTV instead of BET.
“BET wouldn’t give us any money. We wanted to be paid with more then sodas and subs.”
“What really bothers me is this new phenomenon of the ‘magical nigger’ that you see in films such as The Green Mile, The Family Man, The Legend of Baggar Vance, and What dreams May Come. These films have all these magical, mystical Negroes who show up as some sort of spirit or angel but only to benefit the white characters. I mean, Michael Clarke Duncan gave a good performance in The Green Mile but when I saw that movie I knew he was going to get an Academy Award nomination. The Academy just loves roles like that because it makes them feel so liberal. But if this character has such magical powers that he can touch Tom Hanks and cure him of his urinary tract infection, why can’t he use those gifts to just walk out of prison? He tongue kisses cancer out of a white woman and cures her. And in the end Tom Hanks offers to set him free, but guess what? He refuses to leave Death Row. He’d rather die with Tom Hanks looking on. Get the fuck outta here! That’s that old grateful slave shit. And in The Legend Of Baggar Vance if this magical black caddy has all these powers, why isn’t he using them to try and stop some of the other brothers in Georgia from being lynched and castrated? Why is he fucking around with Matt Damon and trying to teach him a golf swing? That is insane. What world was that? Please tell me.”
“If these young white suburban kids like rap, that’s fine, but I don’t think they should try to emulate the so called gangsta mystique. There’s a difference between appreciating the music and taking it beyond that by trying to live out what is a fantasy life even for the rap artists themselves-they’re not real gangsters either.”
“I think the more layers you add, the more complex it becomes, and it makes the film better on repeat viewings.”
“I’m not saying I’m above criticism. I can take it. But these kind of reviews are not talking about the films but about the critic’s perceptions of me. In the Stephen Hunter review, for example, he writes about what he calls Spike’s dilemma – “to have a revolution and to keep his courtside seats at the Garden for Knicks games.” I’m tired of reading movie reviews that include references to me being courtside at Knicks games. Woody Allen has been sitting in courtside seats twice as long as me. And what about Jack Nicholson? I mean, what are we talking about here? Let’s talk about what’s on the screen.”
“I think African American artists are held to a different standard. Bruce Springstein, for example, has made more money from ‘Born In The USA’ then I’ll ever make in my life, but he’s still considered a pillar of the working class. Now I’ve been going to Knicks games since I was a little kid, sitting in the blue nosebleed seats, but now I’m fortunate to have a little money so I can indulge myself by sitting courtside. But what does that have to do with cinema?”
“The easiest way to discredit the work of a filmmaker whose subject matter is race is to call him a racist. Simple. There is an unwritten code, especially if you’re not Jewish, that if you have a Jewish character who is not positive, you’re automatically considered anti-Semitic. But I’m not going to be handcuffed like that or be forced to falsify a situation. You mean to tell me that in the history of the music industry there have never been any white managers who deliberately exploited black artists? That in Bamboozled, while I can have rappers going around smoking herb, drinking malt liquor, and killing people, I can’t have a Jewish publicist whose character might be a little shaky?”
“Let me give you another example. I could never appear in a scene where I’m seated in the back of a cab and talking to the driver about my wife – let’s say she’s Jewish or whatever – and I say stuff like, “Did you ever see what a .44 does to a Jewish pussy?’ If I’d have done that scene that Marty Scorsese did in Taxi Driver…..They’d be coming after me with a rope. Now, Marty’s my dear friend. He’s a humanitarian, not a racist at all, but why is it that he cannot only direct that film, but also play that character, and critics are able to distinguish between Martin Scorsese and the character he plays, whereas in my films-even when I’m not playing a character in a scene-critics assume that those are my thoughts, my beliefs, and not those of the characters?”
“After Woody Allen went through this whole thing with Mia Farrow, I made a point of reading every review of his next film, and there was no mention of any of that personal stuff. So I just wish critics would review what’s on the screen and not write about who they think I am. Otherwise I think they do a disservice to their readers.”
Your final montage is pretty awful to watch (in Bamboozled.)
“So is the footage from the Auschwitz concentration camp, but you have to look at it. This stuff cannot be swept under the rug. It’s a reminder of how we were viewed in the past, and possibly still are today. You have to understand the hatred. When you look at the film”s end credit sequence, where we show all that stuff, you have to wonder what type of mind it takes to turn that hatred into a wind-up toy.”
