Twenty-one years ago in 1989, the film Do The Right Thing debuted in theaters and aggressively shifted the focus to the realities of a divided America. Produced, written and directed by Spike Lee. Edited by Barry Alexander Brown. Music by Bill Lee. This film received numerous accolades and awards and was a box office success. “In 1999,it was deemed “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, one of five films to do so in its first year of eligibility. In 2007,the American Film Institute listed the film as the ninety-sixth greatest American Movie in Film History.”
Brief Introduction
Do The Right Thing takes place in the a single street in Bedford-Stuyvesant of Brooklyn which African American lives on New York’s hottest day of the year and talks about the social problem of racial tensions. The main character Mookie(Spike Lee)who lives with his sister Jade (Joie Lee, Lee’s real life sister)and works as a pizza delivery man for the local pizzeria. Sal(Danny Aiello),the pizzeria’s Italian-American owner, has owned the shop for twenty-five years. His older son Pino(John Turturro)and younger son Vito (Richard Edson)work with his father. A elderly drunk Da Mayor(Ossie Davis) is constantly trying to win the affection of the neighborhood matron, Mother-Sister(Ruby Dee).A escalating quarrel between Sal and two customers, Buggin’Out (Giancarlo Esposito)who want to boycott Sal because of “Wall of Fame” and Radio Raheem(Bill Nunn)who always blast “Fight the Power” on his boombox wherever he goes, leads to a fight in which Radio Raheem is killed by policeman accidently. The pizzeria is burned by many African-American inhabitants in the end.
Narrative Style
Like most of Hollywood movies, Do The Right Thing use linear narrative style to tell the story from beginning to the end but the way of telling story seems different from classical usage.
At the beginning of the film, Spike Lee uses many brief and disconnected scenes and large number of characters without goals to narrate the story. It brings a feeling that all the individual scenes seem do not related at all, but actually all these individual sequences that happened before pave the way for the next story development. There are three conflicts during the story.The first one is between Mookie & Sal. When Mookie is working, he insist that Sal pays him his money early because “Gotta get paid”. Mookie uses this as an excuse to neglect his responsibilities. The second is between Buggin’Out & Sal.Buggin’Out questions Sal about the “Wall of Fame” and demands he put some pictures of black celebrities on the wall. Sal refuses his requirement and explains this is his store, he put nobody on the wall except Italians. So Buggin’Out want to boycott Sal because of that. The third one is between Radio Raheem & Sal. When Radio Raheem enter Sal’s pizzeria with his boombox blasting“Fight the Power” music, Sal demand him to turn the music off.Although there is an angry and reluctant facial expression on Radio Raheem’s face, he turns music off finally. Radio Raheem and Buggin’Out together march into Sal’s pizzeria and demand that Sal change the pictures on the wall. At last, all the small conflicts combine together and become a whole big conflict with the development of plots and impetus the plots to climax. Radio Raheem is killed by a policeman by accidently. The fight so far draws a large crowd of onlookers, and all of them are enraged about Radio Raheem’s death. Then Mookie grabs a rubbish bin and throw it through the window of Sal’s pizzeria. The angry let all the onlookers rushes into the pizzeria and destroys everything and Smiley starts a fire. Finally the result of this riot is Sal’s pizzeria is burned. That we associate with classical genre of American film ----the social problem film.
Cinematic Technique
In this film ,cinematic technique has been used frequently to emphasize the community as a whole part. That is why the film has so many segments that there are frequent cuts between one action to another. With the same idea,the camera movements follow characters through the street, catching moments of other group’s activities going on the background. Other camera movements slide away from one line action to another. For example, after introducing Smiley for the first time standing on the street with photo of Martin Luther King and Malcom X, then camera cut to Mookie is counting money in his sister Jade’s room.
The film also use various of camera shots to achieve good mise-en-scene effects. For example,The first scene begins with a extremely close up shot of Senor Love Daddy’s mouth,the top of a microphone and an alarm clock. The alarm clock is making a very loud ,annoying, ringing sound.This is set in order to grab the audiences attention to the problem of racism. After the ringing sound stops, camera start reframing in, and zooming out slowly, seeing more of Senor Love Daddy ,the microphone and the recording studio appears bit by bit. The entire shot has a reddish color which is show the audiences how hot the setting of the film is.The color also reflects tension, conflict and anger that have not expressed in the film yet. When the camera is zooming out, Senor Love Daddy says “Wake up, wake up, wake up … ” This part also gets audiences attention that we should pay attention on the racial problem. And the camera is continue zooming out and panning left from the studio down to the block where all the movie’s action will take place, to show the audience should pay attention to what happen for the next two hours .
Color
Colors can represent difference environment situations, as well as the character’s emotions. In Do The Right Thing, colors set the tone and mood of what is happening during the story. The colors allow us to associate with the weather and certain emotions that we are being felt by some of the characters.
In the outside scenes, we can notice that the main color of the film: red. We can see the big red wall in the background that gets darker and lighter from time to time. At the beginning of the film, it shot a girl wearing a red dress is dancing vigorously and aggressively, suddenly she change to a blue dress is dancing ,her clothes color stands out from the red wall. We also see the colors black and white when the red color disappears for a while. Then red become the main color through out the film. Spike Lee uses different tones of red, yellow and orange to show us that the day is hot. The opening scene where Da Mayor is sleeping we can see the whole room is tinted with of mix of yellow, red and orange. This is represent the heat and sun light. After this scene, we get introduced Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith)who is standing in front of a big red building and he is being shown with an orange tint. Then scene followed with Mookie in his sister, Jade’s room. This room is totally red, shows that it is very hot in there. We can see the use of red, orange and yellow through out the movie to keep reminding us of how warm it is.
The color red is also used in reference of love and hate. when Sal and Pino are sitting together in the pizzeria, the tone seems to be a bit red hinting some knd of love connection between the two.It not the usual red color that shows the hot weather. Also Da Mayor gives red roses to Mother Sister, the red in the roses stands out from all the color during the scene. Red also shows anger as well, when Sal’s two son are standing next to him wathing the pizzeria burn down, we can see the big red wall behind Vito which helps emphasize his angry about what is happened.
Characters
Unlike the classical movies,Do The Right Thing includes an usually large number of characters.But ,actually only eight of them provide the main causal action:Mookie, Tina, Sal, Sal’s son Pino, Buggin’Out , Radio Raheem, Da Mayor and Mother Sister,mainly reacting to the action set in motion by these character’s conflict and goals. Other characters’ goals and actions set to try to ease conflicts or suggest some impossible ways to change the situation. For example,Mookie’s sister Jade persuade her brother should take responsibility in his job and lecture Buggin’Out does not boycott Sal. Senor Love Daddy’s call for peace after quick cutting slurs, “Yo！Hold up! Time out! Time out! Y’all take a chill.Ya need to cool that shit out…and that’s the double truth, Ruth.”Da Mayor tries to overcome Mother Sister’s animosity. Tina want Mookie to spend more time on herself and his son.Mookie gets his pay from Sal after the pizzeria has been destroyed and says that he will find another job and he’s going to see his son.The last shot shows him walking down the quite street,hinting that he may really visit his sonmore frequently in the future.
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