DO THE RIGHT THING (1987)
a retrospective by Justin Siegel
© Justin Siegel
The 1980s, for me anyway, were a surprisingly splendid time in the world of film. The competition for the best film of the decade is an especially heated one: BLUE VELVET, David Lynch's searing, gut-wrenching "comedy" about the depravity that lurks in the house next door was one choice. Scorsese's RAGING BULL was another. BULL's power is somewhat muddied by the incredible critical response it recieved (I mean come on, is there one critic in America that _didn't_ call it the best film of the decade?). An "offbeat" choice that I could hardly disagree with is LESS THAN ZERO, a bleak, nihilistic portait of rich drug-addicts, that includes the best performance of the decade, by Robert Downey JR. Spike Lee's ultra-controversial DO THE RIGHT THING has my vote as best film. It seemed to capture a hot-ass Bed-Stuy day better than any movie could've, and its portrait of racial tensions between blacks and Italians was one of cultured thoughtfulness (the illiteracy of Pino, for example, which was never actually discussed, but easy to pick up by a careful watcher).
But the film was the work of a middle-class filmmaker (Lee) playing at being poor. While the film still has undeniably power, it never fully made me believe in Lee's comprehension of the lifestyle he was covering. Would a working-class twentysomething Brooklynite _really_ start a riot over "brothers on the wall"? Would another working-class twentysomething Brooklynite nearly kill an old man for breaking his radio?
Which brings me to another point. Mookie threw a trashcan though Sal's window because the police killed Radio Raheem. SAL lost his entire business -- his life -- because two asshole police officers killed a man in red hot rage. Lee has said that he pulled the film away from Paramount (to MCA) becasue the studio wanted it to end with "Mookie and Sal huging and singing 'We Are the World.'" That statement made me think: I felt angered by the ending of DO THE RIGHT THING, no only at the black rioters, but with the racist store-owners, Pino especially. Had the film ended as Paramount suggested, though, I would've felt gypped. The mark of a good film is that it can leave a bad taste in your mouth, but you'll watch it again in a second. DO THE RIGHT THING is one of those films.
While not a perfect film, it is as close as American film has come in the past 10 years. Spike Lee has yet to make a film better than DTRT, and I highly doubt he ever will.
Favorite Quote:
MOOKIE: You da man.
BUGGIN OUT: You da man.
MOOKIE: No you da man.
BUGGIN OUT: No you da man.
MOOKIE: No you da man.
BUGGIN OUT: No I'm just a struggling black man
tryin' to keep his dick hard in a cruel
and harsh world.... whassup with the
white boy?
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