The time I saw Spike Lee in Banff

Modified from my post on the yegfilm blog ...

The Banff Centre managed to recruit acclaimed director Spike Lee to participate in a “Conversation” with Ian Brown last month, in front of an audience of ~750 people. I was lucky enough to be in the second row for this talk. 

I’ve always understood that Spike Lee’s worldview and personal history have informed and pervaded most of his films, as is probably the case for every filmmaker, except not as many mainstream directors have Lee’s interest in race and class issues.

As someone who is interested in the craft and business of filmmaking, as well as politics and social justice, I would have liked to hear a bit more on how the two intersect, but the interviewer, Ian Brown, framed the questions to focus separately on Lee’s activism and Lee’s filmmaking. Lee did comment that it isn’t necessarily the role of the artist to provide answers, but to hold a mirror up to society so that they can see what the issues are.

Film Found Spike
There were quite a few encouraging points in this talk for aspiring filmmakers. Lee stated that he didn’t go looking for film: film found him. Between his second and third years at Morehouse College, a friend passed on a Super 8 camera and some film. Lee taught himself to use it and spent the summer wandering New York to capture some distinctive events in 1977: the advent of disco, block parties, and a major blackout. He filmed the fallout of New York’s financial crisis that year, and the way people responded to Son of Sam (years later Lee used some of this material for his feature film Summer of Sam).

Getting Films Made
Lee also made several comments about financing films, from his first works after film school, to his current Kickstarter initiative, as well as the need to backstop a major studio production. He thanked his grandmother, an art teacher in Georgia, for saving money which helped him through film school.
She’s Gotta Have It (1986) was made for $175K and shot in 12 days (as Lee said that, I found myself trying to count all the locations I remembered from that film and wondering how it could be done!) Lee mentioned collecting bottles and cans to raise money for She’s Gotta Have It and stated that he only played the role of Mars because he couldn’t afford to pay another actor.

It was very interesting to hear that when Malcolm X went over budget in post, Spike Lee approached high-profile contacts in the black community and simply asked them to share some funds. He had phone numbers for Bill Cosby, Magic Johnson, Janet Jackson, Tracy Chapman and Michael Jordan, who all gifted him some money to finish the film.

An audience member had tweeted a question to Lee, before the show, regarding “strings attached” when financing a movie through Kickstarter. Lee, who has raised over $1.4 million on Kickstarter to make The Sweet Blood of Jesus, confirmed that there was some more freedom this way, but since some of his donors had skipped meals to afford to donate $5 to the film, he felt a greater responsibility to make an outstanding movie.

Emotion in Filmmaking
Lee’s comments on the emotion involved in filmmaking made a strong impact on me. Someone from the Banff Centre’s Women in the Director’s Chair program asked how to help less experienced actors cope with very intense roles. Lee’s response suggested that inexperienced people shouldn’t be put in that position—either in front of the camera, or as crew. He discussed how difficult it was for his cast and crew to film the scenes reenacting Malcolm X’s assassination, wanting to get them over with as quickly as possible. In response to a question about his favourite parts of filmmaking, he said he preferred the editing phase to the stress of a shoot. Given how many questions a director is asked every day on set, he noted that “the culmination of many wrong answers” could cause big problems.

Polarizing Figure
Is Spike Lee a controversial figure? I often wonder why anyone would say that. He’s more likely a controversial basketball fan. Spike Lee is a genius. He’s funny. He says what he thinks, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Many of his films are very entertaining, but he does “hold the mirror up” and bring attention to issues that need more attention. In that respect (and in many more technical respects), he is certainly groundbreaking.

Judging from the cheers, the Banff Centre audience (which included Rona Ambrose!) was on the same page as Spike Lee with almost everything he said: it is ridiculous that Ronald Reagan referred to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. It is ridiculous that Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture over Do the Right Thing. It is appalling that the U.S. government got aid to Indonesian earthquake victims faster than they could send help to victims of Hurricane Katrina. My impression was that Ian Brown was doing everything he could to be provocative and try to encourage Lee to sound more controversial—leading to Brown putting his foot in his own mouth on several occasions (most notably stating that no one in the Banff Centre knew where New Orleans was, commenting that Canadian Norman Jewison might have directed Malcolm X, and suggesting that it was OK to put a “funny” spin on slavery in Django Unchained). Lee did challenge any journalist to write a serious comparison of Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave.

While I’m not sure that an interview format was ideal (and, having taught at NYU for 15 years I’m certain Spike Lee can deliver a talk to a large group), I did enjoy hearing the impressions of such an outstanding writer and filmmaker.