The Spike Lee brand

The Spike Lee Brand

SUNY series in African American Studies

—————

John R. Howard and Robert C. Smith, editors

The Spike Lee Brand

A Study of Documentary Filmmaking

Delphine Letort

Foreword by

Mark A. Reid

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2015 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,

electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise

without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Production, Jenn Bennett

Marketing, Anne M. Valentine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Letort, Delphine.

The Spike Lee brand : a study of documentary filmmaking / Delphine Letort ;

foreword by Mark A. Reid.

pages cm. — (SUNY series in African American studies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-5763-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4384-5764-2 (e-book)

1. Lee, Spike—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Documentary films. I. Title.

PN1998.3.L44L48 2015

791.4302'33092—dc23 2014038928

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I wish to dedicate this work to Ludovic and Joséphine

and thank them for their patience and everyday support.

Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Foreword: Agency as Remembering and Retelling xi

Mark A. Reid

Acknowledgments xiii

List of Abbreviations xv

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Making of Spike Lee’s Nonfiction Joints 9

Chapter 2 History and Memory: The African American

Experience 37

Chapter 3 Media and Race 63

Chapter 4 The Legacy of Black Nationalism: Culture and Politics 103

Conclusion 149

Notes 155

Bibliography 189

Index 205

ix

List of Illustrations

Figure 1.1 When the Levees Broke. Courtesy of Photofest 26

Figure 2.1 Four Little Girls. Courtesy of Photofest 41

Figure 3.1 Jim Brown: All American. Courtesy of Photofest 83

Figure 3.2 A Huey P. Newton Story. Courtesy of Photofest 98

Figure 4.1 When the Levees Broke. Courtesy of Photofest 108

xi

FOREWORD

Agency as Remembering and Retelling

Mark A. Reid*

The potential that concerns me is that of black filmmaking in this

country. By raising funds himself, using blacks in most of the creative

positions, and—to the shock of the cynical and jaded—making mon￾ey, Spike has thrown down the gauntlet at those black filmmakers

awaiting the blessings of cinema’s “great white fathers.”

—Nelson George, The Foreword to He’s Gotta Have It 1

Most book-length works, book chapters, and academic and film articles

that discuss the work of Spike Lee do not cover his documentaries; and

when they do, the article narrowly focuses on a single nonfiction film. I

admit that I have done this in all my writing on one of America’s most

important filmmakers. Therefore, when I was given an opportunity to

review a manuscript about Lee’s documentary work I welcomed the chal￾lenge and found that Lee’s talent in telling human stories covers many

waterfronts of blackness with passionate visually sincere brushstrokes.

CNN reporter and talk show host Anderson Cooper considers Spike Lee

as a major figure in contemporary black American cultural politics. This is

evidenced in Anderson Cooper’s 360° interviews with Lee on such issues as

Donald Sterling’s (former owner of the Los Angeles Spurs basketball team)

recorded racist diatribe, the gentrification of New York City’s historically

*Mark A. Reid is Professor of English at the University of Florida. He is the author of

Redefining Black Film (U. of California Press, 1993), PostNegritude Visual and Literary

Culture (SUNY Press, 1997), and Black Lenses, Black Voices: African American Film

Now (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

xii / Foreword

black communities, and the use of the “N” word in Quentin Tarrantino’s

Django Unchained.

Lee is a late-comer to documentary filmmaking and there exist

many highly respected African-American documentarians like Madeline

Anderson, Carol Parrott Blue, Stanley Nelson, Michelle Parkerson, Marlon

Riggs, Jacqueline Shearer, Yvonne Welbon, and others who paved the way

for Spike Lee. Unlike these filmmakers, Lee’s entry into nonfiction film

comes after a long and critically successful career in writing, producing,

and making fiction films. For this reason, a volume on his social docu￾mentaries merits our attention.

The Spike Lee Brand makes a very important contribution to scholar￾ly studies of the film-work of Spike Lee by looking at his documentaries.

The author’s coverage intelligently places Lee in the pantheon of important

social political documentarians such as Claude Lanzmann and Emile de

Antonio. The volume is probably the first single-authored work that I am

aware of that covers Spike Lee’s documentaries. It is a finely written piece

that should have already been published here in the USA.

The volume is well organized in sections that explain Lee’s overall

film-works before it examines his documentaries. Delphine Letort’s cov￾erage of Lee’s work is prefaced with comments on his narrative films,

which then are distinguished from the style of his documentaries. She

analyzes the different distinguishing elements between Lee’s fiction and

nonfiction films, while she insists on the similar political qualities that

prevail regardless of the two different genres.

Letort’s balanced appraisal of Lee’s nonfiction films is complemented

with discussions about how Lee’s documentaries address issues that con￾cern racism in urban America. The Spike Lee Brand indicates how Lee’s

documentaries show black agency through the community’s collective

actions that demand legal and judicial changes. Each chapter indirectly

provides reasons why cultural anthropologists, public policymakers, film

scholars, and audiences should invest more attention to Spike Lee’s social

documentaries and the recorded voices of those who bear witness to their

predicament.

xiii

Acknowledgments

I started researching and writing this book after watching Spike Lee’s

documentaries about Hurricane Katrina, which provided insight into the

images of distress that had flooded the screens of French television. My

study gradually expanded into a full-length book after working on Four

Little Girls and A Huey P. Newton Story, which I discovered challenged

the historical narrative of the Civil Rights movement as I was teaching

it in my civilization courses. Not only do these films investigate the past

in an attempt to reveal untold truths, thus placing Spike Lee among such

innovative documentary filmmakers as Emile de Antonio and Errol Mor￾ris, but they also convey an African-American perspective which I have

endeavored to present to my students. Spike Lee’s documentaries have pro￾vided useful teaching material, allowing students to further their historical

understanding of the periods presented in the films. I wish to thank my

students for their enthusiastic responses to the images we screened and

commented together, which provided the initial incentive to this project.

I am grateful to my dear colleagues and friends Eliane Elmaleh and

Brigitte Felix, who have both been a source of inspiration and unflinching

support through the years we have been working together at the Univer￾sity of Maine (Le Mans, France). Through discussion and debate they

have helped me gain confidence in various research projects—including

this book of which they heard the first words. My thanks also go to John

Wilde who has been a very careful reader to most of the pages that fol￾low. His comments helped improve the quality of my writing and I truly

appreciate his insight and many suggestions.

My home university granted me a six-month sabbatical leave,

allowing me to pursue the research necessary for the completion of this

book. I wish to express my gratitude to this institution as well as to my

research lab (3L.AM—Langues, Littératures, Linguistique de l’Université

d’Angers et du Maine) and its directors Nathalie Prince, Franck Laurent,

xiv / Acknowledgments

and Benaouda Lebdai. I have collaborated with my colleagues at the

Department of English on various projects or courses, which have helped

broaden my knowledge in different fields of study. I want to acknowl￾edge their support through this friendly note: Redouane Aboueddahab,

Alban Daumas, Laïli Dor, William Gleeson, Laurence Guillois-Becel,

Jeffrey Hopes, Xavier Lachazette, Elisabeth Lamothe, Hélène Lecossois,

Laurence Mauger, Brigitte Moriceau, Estelle Rivier, Anne-Marie Santin￾Guettier, and Richard Tholoniat.

I extend my gratitude to Nicole Vigouroux-Frey who trusted me a

few years ago when I timidly started researching films, following an intu￾ition that she helped sharpen by her insightful questions and suggestions.

She has offered her continuous support over the years and I thank her

for her friendship, her intellectual rigor, and her pragmatic advice. I also

had the chance to attend Jean Rasenberger’s film lectures when I was a

student at Occidental College; she offered the greatest thought-provoking

courses I ever had in film studies, challenging the students into watching

art films that I would never have discovered without her guidance.

A great deal of gratitude goes to colleagues who have guided my

research in the past few years and furthered my understanding of films—

including Hélène Charlery, Serge Chauvin, Nicole Cloarec, Emmanuelle

Delanoë-Brun, Renée Dickason, Georges Fournier, Georges-Claude Guil￾bert, Janice D. Hamlet, Anthony T. Larson, Isabelle Le Corff, Gilles Men￾egado, Monica Michlin, Mark A. Reid, David Roche, Dominique Sipière,

Penny Starfield, Taïna Tuhkunen, and Shannon Wells-Lassagne.

Last but not least, I’m exceedingly grateful to Professor Michael T.

Martin who has provided me with consistent support for the past couple

of years—responding enthusiastically to all my questions and emails. His

informative criticism has guided my research efforts, bringing this work

into sharper focus. He suggested new paths of study which have enriched

my approach to black film studies. He invited me to serve on the advisory

editorial board of Black Camera (Indiana University Press), which has

been an exciting adventure that has broadened my perspectives on black

filmmaking and stimulated new avenues of research.

I also owe a great debt to the anonymous peer reviewers whose

stimulating, insightful remarks helped me reshuffle the text into a pub￾lishable piece.

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