Fighting The Power: “Do the Right Thing” 20 Years Later

Spike Lee (right) in a scene "Do the Right Thing".

“1989, the number, another summer,” so goes Public Enemy’s renowned rap anthem.

But it wasn’t just another summer for American cinema. Twenty years ago this week, the year that “Do the Right Thing” exploded onto the screen was a pivotal one. Not only was Spike Lee’s American masterpiece about boiling racial tensions on a Brooklyn block released in U.S. theaters, but so was Steven Soderbergh’s “sex, lies and videotape,” Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me,” Gus Van Sant’s “Drugstore Cowboy,” and Jim Sheridan’s “My Left Foot”—all sophisticated, daring movies that received both significant critical and box-office success, and in a few cases, studio support. In a sense, 1989 was the year that American independent cinema first came of age.

“The time was so ripe,” says John Pierson, who famously gave Spike Lee $10,000 to complete “She’s Gotta Have It” and sold “Roger and Me” to Warner Bros for $3 million.

“You had these people with some degree of success and it was like let’s take it to the next level,” he says, citing directors like the Coen brothers and Spike Lee. “Some of the smarter young studio execs were forward-thinking, like this is the new wave, let’s see if they can make ‘real’ movies that still have an edge.”

“Do the Right Thing” producer Jon Kilik concurs. “After Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles and the Coen brothers’ ‘Blood Simple’ and ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ it really felt like there was a movement happening,” he says. “From ‘86 and ‘87, you could just feel that building in a special and unique way.”

If Spike Lee’s second film “School Daze” was mishandled by newly installed leadership at Columbia Pictures, souring the director’s relationship with Hollywood, “Do the Right Thing,” backed by Universal Pictures, provided a model for mutually beneficent success between maverick filmmakers and major entertainment companies, according to Pierson.

Remember, this was before all the studios had specialty divisions. If “Do the Right Thing” were released today, insiders suggest its backer would likely be Universal subsidiary Focus Features, rather than the big studio.

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Danny Aiello, Ruby Dee, Samuel L Jackson and Spike Lee at the twentieth anniversary screening of “Do the Right Thing” at the DGA Theater Monday night.  [Image courtesy Dave Allocca / Star Pix] “It was a good relationship,” says Sean Daniel, who was Universal’s president of production at the time. While Daniel admits a certain level of reluctance among top brass at the conglomerate—“How could it not make studio management nervous,” he says—“I wouldn’t want to overstate it. There was not a fight about creative control. The studio was very much behind the movie,” he says, “and the owners of the studio didn’t question us.” Kilik notes the rules were essentially the same as today: As long as Lee worked within the constraints of strict financial limitations—in this case a budget of $6 million—“you can make what you want if you have shown them you have the talent and the ability to succeed,” says the producer. Pierson calls the collaboration between Lee and Universal, “a key signature moment,” he says, “because it paved the way for studios to think they could get involved with somebody like Spike, and for filmmakers to think it was a good option for them.” Indeed, at a special cast-and-crew reunion screening at New York’s DGA Theater on Monday night, Lee opened his introductions by giving a shout-out to former Universal Pictures president Tom Pollock, who was also in attendance, specifically thanking him for supporting the movie. Current studio boss David Linde was also on hand for the event. “He was very crucial because when this film debuted at Cannes, this stuff started that it would ‘cause riots, and there was pressure on Tom Pollock to not release the film, or at least wait until after summertime—because you know how black folks get in the summertime,” Lee told the laughing crowd. “He had just went through this with Martin Scorsese’s ‘Last Temptation of Christ,’ where he got death threats,” added Lee. “So Tom Pollock could have easily folded under pressure. But he did not.” —this article continues on the next page—   (1 of 2)  Next Page › posted on July 1, 2009 |Share