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Do the Right Thing: BFI Film Classics

31-Oct-01
96 pages
Published/distributed by BFI Publishing
ISBN/EAN: 9780851708683
Paperback
Price: £9.99
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Do the Right Thing: BFI Film Classics 
Guerrero, Ed
Do the Right Thing (1989) is arguably Spike Lee's best feature film, and one of the most popular and celebrated examples of African America's ongoing 'new black film wave'. Set during the hottest day of a racially tense year in New York City, the film's ensemble cast, including Lee himself, brilliantly play out the edgy negotiations and dramas of a racially and culturally diverse working-class Brooklyn neighbourhood. Contrary to Hollywood's markedly cautious treatment of 'race' and its confinement to the South and the past, Do the Right Thing offers a nuanced portrayal of black urban life. From hip-hop fashions, Afrocentric colours and rap music, to police brutality, gentrification, non-white immigration, deindustrialisation and joblessness, Do the Right Thing depicts it all, from a contemporary, African American point of view.

Ed Guerrero discusses how Do the Right Thing epitomises Spike Lee's powerful impact on the representation of race and difference in America, the progress of black film-making and the rise of multicultural voices in the media. Guerrero emphasises Lee's especially timely understanding of black film-making as a complex act, mixing the skills of art, politics and business in order to fashion a creative practice that confronts institutional discrimination and power relations head on.
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