Still Doing the Right Things: The Anniversary of Spike Lee’s Masterpiece

Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. In competition at the 89’ Cannes, it lost the Palm d’Or to Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape, owing at least in part to jury president Wim Wenders’ now famous opinion that the film’s hero, Mookie, was insufficiently heroic. Lee was incensed enough to suggest that Wenders “had better watch out 'cause I'm waiting for his ass!" He even claimed to have a baseball bat with the director’s name on it.

In hindsight, they both come off sounding petulant or worse, but the film retains its power. There will surely be e-ink spilled on how its thematic content has aged, whether Wenders ever had a leg to stand on, etc., but what struck me most upon re-watching was the enduring thrill of Lee’s craft: the Brechtian directness, the Dutch angles foreshadowing the turbulence of the finale, the ice cube scene that’s straight out of Godard’s Une Femme Mariée. His obsession with showcasing formal technique brought accusations of film-student mannerism, but now that seems like a very dated (and distinctly American) critique. Two decades later, few could mistake Lee’s bold, expressive style for immature posturing. I want to call it progress, or maybe just proof that the culture learns to accommodate all great works eventually.