Spike Lee wakes up

A curious dynamic
From the start Spike has wanted to present as many African-American voices as possible in his films. At the same time he seems to want to dissolve them into one voice. It’s a curious dynamic. In “School Daze,” the politically motivated black students battle the following groups: the cartoonish “wannabes,” the school’s administrators, and, in the film’s best scene, the showercap-wearing townies in the KFC parking lot. So many different voices; so many different perspectives. But all are apparently united in the end by Dap’s call to “Wake up!” We are many but we are one.

This dynamic is handled to better effect in “Do The Right Thing,” which begins where “School Daze” ended: with the call to wake up. Here the characters are less cartoonish. Radio Raheem and Buggin’ Out may be one-note but they are not cartoons. Sadly, Buggin’ Out’s attempt to unite this diverse community against Sal only works when his one acolyte, Radio Raheem, is killed by the cops. Then the neighborhood becomes united in rage. It’s a dynamic familiar to minority communities around the world : We know we are many but they see us as one — witness: Malcolm X’s joke about the black man with a Ph.D. — and so we’d better present a united front. It’s us vs. them; we’ll agree to be an “us” as long as there is a “them.” But we know better.

Does Spike know better? I know the escalation of violence at the end of “Do the Right Thing” has been talked to death, but I’ve always admired its horrific balance: 1) How the destruction of property (Sal breaking Raheem’s radio) leads to 2) a physical attack (Raheem choking Sal), which 3) leads to a physical attack (the cops choking then killing Raheem), which 4) leads to the destruction of property (the mob burning Sal’s to the ground).

There’s balance to it but no justice. Radio Raheem didn’t deserve to be killed for attacking Sal, while burning Sal’s Pizzeria to the ground only makes sense if you remove Sal’s humanity and see him as a symbol of his race, a representative of the white establishment. Yet, according to Spike, that’s how Mookie sees him. In the director’s commentary, Spike explains it this way: “Sal’s Famous Pizzeria represents everything that oppressed [Mookie] and black people.” The irony with this kind of racial myopia, the reduction of Sal from man to symbol, is that, along with Troy from “Crooklyn” and Jake Shuttlesworth in “He Got Game,” Sal is probably the fullest character Spike Lee has ever created.

The smuggler
So after all the metaphoric garbage cans tossed through all the metaphoric windows, will Spike Lee wind up as just another studio director toeing the studio line?

Here’s an answer. In the BBC documentary “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies,” Scorsese divides Hollywood directors into four basic categories: storytellers, illusionists, iconoclasts and smugglers. Within this framework Spike has always been an iconoclast, attacking studio perceptions head on, and like many iconoclasts (Eric von Stronheim, Orson Welles), he’s come away bruised and defeated.

With “Inside Man,” Spike merely (and probably temporarily) switches categories. He becomes a smuggler. Of course, since he’s Spike Lee, he’s not the best smuggler in the world. He’s a little obvious. His pockets bulge. The film includes slams against racial epithets and video game violence and other social ills. And there are other, typical Spike problems. The film is too long, and a few of the revelations are obvious and Spike’s signature shot (actor on the dolly as the dolly moves) is once again unnecessary.

But it’s a fun movie. When was the last time you could say that of a Spike Lee joint?

Yes, Erik Lundegaard still hates “Crash.”

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