Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing

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When Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” came out in 1989 it explored race in a new way. The film takes place in Brooklyn and features characters from different races and backgrounds. The poignant message and commentary from the film is present in the character’s interactions with each other. To show the importance and intensity of the character’s reactions, Lee employs a variety of cinematographic techniques. The different camera angles, the varying focus, the colors, and even the zoom all play a role in depicting Lee’s message. The aesthetic choices made by Lee in this film help to further the “post-essentialist” concept of race in the late 1908s. The time period, coined the “Age of Fracture” by Daniel Rodgers in his book, is a time in which …show more content…
To get viewers to focus on what a person was saying and how they were saying it, Lee used different cinematographic techniques. In the argument in the pizza parlor, the camera cuts back and forth between the characters so that the viewer has to look at who is speaking and cannot just concentrate on the argument as a whole. Additionally the focus on the facial expressions showed how heated the characters were both from the sweat and furrow of their brow. Another method was to use low angle shots to make subjects look more intimidating and intense. This is especially present when Radio Raheem is asking for a slice of Pizza and Sal keeps telling him to turn it down. As the camera angle lowers the argument gets more heated until the radio is smashed. This focus on emotion and intensity is Lee’s greatest accomplishment in this film. He does not give the viewer an option of what to look at on screen and what parts to ignore. Lee makes the viewer see and hear his characters as they are often presented alone on screen. Lee likely does this to make a point about American culture. The views of some in the country are being ignored or not fully heard. The camera is too far back, so to speak. Lee addresses this problem and puts the camera right up in the face so that there is no choice but to see and to hear what somebody has to say. It is …show more content…
Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” is released in a context of racial tension and “post-essentialist” thinking. The film’s placement in this age of fracture gives it the opportunity to add to the conversation about race. The topics of identity, individuality, disaggregation, and generalization are all addressed. Lee’s film contributes to the period’s conception on race, and he does this with the aesthetic choices he made during production of the film. By using unique camera angles and lenses Lee is able to focus the viewers attention on the emotion and expression of the speaker. Additionally his fast cuts and screen composition lend to a chaotic and tense environment. These choices were made deliberately and created a film that differed from all others. As the ideas about race were changing it was only fitting that the presentation of these ideas was also changing. Lee found a way to present new concepts and new aesthetic techniques while also commenting on “post-essentialist” America. By pushing the boundaries of what used to be accepted, Lee was able to create a film that reflected the ideas of the time and he presented in such a way that his characters could not be ignored and his message could not be turned
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