SubJeff on 25/9/2012 at 22:41
So I finally got to watch this in one sitting yesterday, beginning to end without interruptions - something that had eluded me until now.
Wow.
I wish I'd seen this all the way through back when it came out. There are almost no redeeming black characters in this film. The only one is Da Mayor who seems to have wisdom on his side. Even Sweet Dick Willie's crew come across as borderline feral at the end. The mob mentality displayed in this film was, imho, potentially damaging in that it is a film made by a black man about black people that reinforces a lot of really bad stereotypes. Radio Rahim, Buggin Out, Ahmad and crew - all totally unreasonable a-holes.
The "discussion" about Mookie's role in starting the destruction of Sal's to save Sal's life is moot imho. Why should he have to save Sal's life? Or rather, why should the crowd blame Rahim's death on Sal and sons? It was Rahim's fault; he was that stupid he didn't know when to quit. It's interesting that the only real racist, Pino, is somewhat vindicated in his view that Mookie can't be trusted and that Sal and sons need to get out of the neighbourhood.
The first half of the film is so relaxing, so nice and summery, that the second half jars. It's very well done and the ebb and flow of life on a hot Saturday is really convincing and so comfortably mastered. Lee did a great job with it and it hasn't aged badly at all.
It's a great film but I don't think, in retrospect, Lee paints the picture he set out to. Unless it's to show how bovine the people in this neighbourhood are.
Let's go!!! Battle discussion - ON.
Scots Taffer on 25/9/2012 at 23:25
Only ever heard good things about this movie over the years, this thread has finally prompted me to queue it up in my list to watch.
PigLick on 25/9/2012 at 23:58
I saw it ages ago when it first came out on video I think, dont really recall much of it, but I do remember it being an bit of an eye-opener, thinking "is this really an accurate portrayal or is there poetic license". It was a good film though, probly worth going back and watching it with some hindsight.
henke on 26/9/2012 at 04:41
It was years since I saw it as well. Not sure I even liked it.
demagogue on 26/9/2012 at 06:24
Ok, didn't actually give my take on the film itself before. I mean I don't really remember much but looking back over the plot summary to remind me a little... I think the key symbol of the film was the two drawings of MLK and Malcolm X getting put up on the charred walls of the pizzaria, which to me was a nice image of a Pyrrhic victory... Yes you got your two crude pictures up on the wall of heroes, now that it's a charred black wall and relationships in the neighborhood were burnt in the process... And then you get the parting note, not really reconciliation, but life gets a little back to normalized when what's-his-face asks for his pay & gets it -- because that's what normal people that work together do. In the big picture, I think it's an artistic reflection of the uneasy, daily coexistence of pent-up crusted frustration and banal normal life that neighborhoods like that are... I mean even to the literal level of the plotting, half being breezy summer days and half being the outbursts...
In the big picture I see it as a contribution to the conversation going on in the US black community about the outlets of pent-up frustration in the real world, and what venting about that frustration is actually worth in the big scheme of things. That's why I was a bit sympathetic with deth's earlier take (as I interpreted it) that, if you're taking that conversation within the black community out of the picture -- if we'd try to discuss this as a neutral film about it's storytelling or whatever -- you're already missing probably most of the point... But then if we are saying we need to jump into that conversation to give justice to what the movie is trying to say, we should be clear about that and not try to skirt around it. We're talking about a commentary on the frustrations and banalities of everyday life in black neighborhoods in the US.
Another undertone I got, that I also felt in NYC, was this idea of entitlement being in a neighborhood. When you have families that have been in the same neighborhood for generations, of course people there are going to have a strong sense of entitlement, this is their neighborhood... Then you get immigrants or other folks who have been living there, or have some good reason to be there, also having a strong sense of entitlement... So you get these different strands of entitlement all coexisting on the same streets... I mean especially where I was in the Village, you had young blacks and NYU students walking the same streets with the same sense of entitlement to being there, that these were their streets and they belonged there, as opposed to some random person just passing through... Some of this movie I thought was just about untangling these strands of coexisting entitlements as they knotted with and against each other. I'm sure a lot of neighborhoods in the world have the same dynamics going on.
Muzman on 26/9/2012 at 10:16
Yes, it's definitely all about illustrating a mood that's not a straightforward thing, not an obvious good and bad relationship, and how it can rapidly bubble to the surface.
The neighbourhood is mostly a peaceable, interesting cultural melting pot. But the historical tension never truly goes away.
Spike has no interest in role models or fine exemplars of black culture, or any of the groups represented. It's really testing your prejudices at every turn, particularly for the white audience: Buggin Out and so on are annoying, Radio Raheem is intimidating, Mookie is lazy and walks that pizza fuckin slow, The Mayor is a drunk. It's not in The Heat of the Night. Not a Poitier among them and that's surely the point.
I've never heard the theory that Mookie starts the riot to save Sal himself. It's interesting, but I only ever thought it was a situation where the line has been drawn exactly where it always gets drawn. It's too late once the raging starts and that anger has to go somewhere. Is it "right"? Ultimately no, but none of it is right. He was given a choice and he picked the neighbourhood over Sal's. The wrong people always lose in this situation
