Did I do the right thing by watching Do The Right Thing? I don't recall ever hearing about this film until the day I watched it. You can tell I didn't watch this film exactly voluntarily, like the last one, but that's okay. Well, I don't have to have heard about every film, I guess. Sometimes it is good to watch things that weren't seemingly interesting to you at first. Same goes for books. If you leave me alone, I would read only the books I'm interested in, which sounds like a natural thing to do. However, being in a book club gives me an opportunity to give certain other books a chance and I do end up liking some of them even though they may not be the literary genre I prefer. All that is to say, I am glad I am seeing different types of films now---although that doesn't imply I necessarily will like them.
Before I start, let us record that this film was released in 1989. I do not know when, but at some point in the past, they switched from showing actor/director names at the beginning of the film to showing them at the end (although there may be exceptions). I believe they did the right thing. At the beginning of this film, there was a song (whose lines were practically slogans) playing and there was a girl dancing while the whole film crew's names were being written on the screen, one by one. Now, this song was about four and a half minutes, and the dance was not interesting to me either. I didn't care much about the names at that point because, well, I live in 2023 and I can look these things up after the movie anyways. So that was pretty boring, but don't let that discourage you. If you can survive the first 5 minutes of the movie, err film, you will see non-boring parts too. I guess the most interesting thing about the dancing girl, to me, was the clothing---I don't think I miss the fashion trends of late 1980s and/or early 1990s. If you wanted to have some nostalgia though, you can put this film on, I am sure it will help you.
Normally, I try to evaluate the shows I watch according to the year they are made. This is sort of easier when the show is really really old, like 1940s or 1960s. But when it's somewhat closer to current time it is harder because, first of all, there are clear differences how the show (or film) would be shot in years like 1940s, and second, there are more clear differences in how things looked like in real life in very old days. For example, 24 is one of my favourite tv series. I have seen it when it was being aired. If you had tried to watch it in, say 2018 (I am not even saying 2023), you'd have to shush your inner critique about certain things if you really wanted to enjoy it. Same goes for Doctor Who. Not the first one from the 1960s, but the one that started in 2005. It's really hard for me to like the seasons from 2005-2006 when I watch them now, even though I had liked them in the first place. But if I go back and watch the episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s, I don't even start to criticize things that are due to its year---they don't bother me. Now, 1989. This is really tricky, it's not 2000s and it's definitely not 60s. The film definitely depicts those last bits of the culture of the 80s. So I guess I just am not a fan of that culture, although interestingly enough, when it comes to rock music, I really like 70s and 80s---in fact, those are still what I listen to daily. Okay, nobody said I had to be consistent with myself, so I believe all is good.
Like I mentioned at the beginning, I didn't know about this movie until I watched it, but I did have two pieces of information about it: that it involves Brooklyn streets and that the film tried to give the audience a feeling of hot weather. When I hear Brooklyn, the first thing that comes to my mind is Captain America. Well, he was an Iced Cap during the 80s, so he has nothing to do with this movie. The second thing that came to my mind was my own promenade in Brooklyn. It was just a walk but the neighbourhood was really nice. So it was nice to see those streets again, in the film, although they looked a bit different---when I visited Brooklyn it was not the 80s. If you know about the typical architectural style of Brooklyn homes (at least from tv shows), you know that there are usually a short flight of stairs to the entrance of the houses. When I visited Brooklyn, nobody was sitting on those, so it was nice to see in the film that they were used. I guess it is nice to hang out on the stairs and it is not a problem unless it's someone else's house. In fact, when I was younger, I would hang out on such stairs (not in Brooklyn---this type of entrance exists in other places on earth as well) but I never knew the owners of these buildings that I sat at the entrance of. So I was often shooed. In fact, one time someone---instead of saying something---emptied a bucket of (dirty) water on me. I can't say it was a pleasant experience. So yes, as the film rolled and events of the film started, these were what I was thinking of.
The second piece of information I had: the film tried to give the audience a feeling of hot weather. They made it look like, in the film, it was one of the hottest summers in the history of NYC. I wondered if there was such a thing in the years immediately previous to the year the film was made, and strangely, there wasn't. Well, there is 1983 but it is not that close to 1989, although it could have still been an inspiration to Spike Lee (who is the person who made the film). Now, how was hot weather depicted? Everyone was covered in beads of sweat---this is not that hard nor is it creative. The characters mentioned it in their lines how hot it was, which is again not that special. There was an ice cube scene but one could do that without the hot weather too. In fact, the ice cube scene reminded of one of my memories and it was outdoors in the winter, although I must admit there was a hot tub involved, it was still technically cold outside, so this ice cube business did not even make me think of hot weather---too bad. So somehow I wasn't impressed by the several signals of hot temperatures during the movie (nor shortly after). Only a bit more later I realized that I was indeed affected by the characters' suffering that being in the hot brings. How being in hot weather for long periods of time would affect a person('s thinking, decision-making, and feelings) was carefully and successfully weaved into the scenario itself and that was also spectacularly performed by the actors/actresses.
How was it in the scenario/story? I don't mean the obvious lines stating the weather. The physical fever brought up by the hot temperatures is transformed into a fever that was the nervous excitement of the people, and in return, contributed to the violent events at the end of the film. At least that's how I see it. I am not saying the whole fight started just because it was hot, but one cannot deny that having to bear very high temperatures all day (and on consecutive days) can make a person more impatient than usual and hence the person might have a heightened level of anger at rest.
Continuing with the temperature, they mention in the film that it is about 100 F. Well, that didn't really mean much to me, unfortunately. That's because they didn't write how many Celsius that is, but also I am sort of more tolerant to hot temperatures than others. I guess I am also used to seeing sweating and/or sweaty men (not saying I enjoy it but they exist and I see them), so it wasn't awkward to me at all during the film when they showed these sweaty/sweating men. Now, it was quite funny, though, that these men were still wearing a sleeveless tops underneath their (short sleeve) shirts and still wearing long pants, and socks! I mean, why? If it's that hot, why don't you try de-layering? So I found that funny. The picture I just described is from the scenes where there are a few men sitting in front of a bright red wall under a not-very-large umbrella, which was also a bit funny---they insistently spent time there instead of finding somewhere with an actual shade.
Although I had been claiming the hot weather in the film didn't affect me as much, I did feel relief too when the characters had a relief from the hot by opening the fire hydrant. It is such a freeing experience to be washed down on the street, unless it is done to you by the police like here or by a police vehicle with water cannons. So the relief sensation I was thinking of was like the following. It's summer (and potentially 37 degrees C), you are watering your backyard with a hose (or cleaning the floors of the front yard), you make a salvo and before you turn off the water, you water your feet and that gives you a little nice break from the hot. This is probably one of my happiest memories from childhood---playing with water as a child was always fun. Of course, that required the parents let you play with water, although it is possible to do it secretly as well and feel the illusion of freedom.
The fire hydrant scene definitely made me think of the notion of freedom. Freedom, or more precisely, the United States being a country of freedom (or not), was mentioned in the movie at least a couple of times. It was a nice touch and aligns well with the film's statement. I always like it if someone questions the status of the US being the land of freedom---because that's what the US would like to advertise itself as (to the rest of the world) but to me it's just a grand charade. There is a lot I can say about this but I will stick to the film's review. I think the film depicts freedom (being an illusion) in a quite well manner. It is true, though, one has more freedom in the US compared to Canada in at least one context: drinking on the streets. As I live in Canada, during the scenes where they were drinking on the street, I truly envied them and asked myself: could the United States of America be really the country of freedom?
Although the name of the film is Do The Right Thing, for the most part of the film, people just kept not doing the right thing. Especially toward the end of it, first Radio Raheem doesn't do the right thing, then the Italian-American Sal doesn't do the right thing, then the police doesn't do the right thing, and it goes on like that. At the very end though, I think the main character did the right thing by staying friends with Sal. The main character was called Mookie. I guess the biggest catch for me about this film was that I had no idea Mookie was Spike Lee. Well, he was very young in the film and I am already bad with faces, what can I say?
Spike Lee is the director, producer and the writer of this film. Now, I think that as a director Spike Lee is not so different than Nolan when it comes to the representation of women. Overall, the women were not represented well in this film. It is just happening in the men's world, and the women were there either just to be pretty or to be an object of sex. In fact, the woman who played in the nude scene apparently was crying while filming that (the scenes actually doesn't show her face so you can't tell she was crying). That's horrible, I don't know why they kept filming while she was crying. I don't think they did the right thing.
The thing I liked the most about this film was Samuel L. Jackson. As it turns out, he had not yet had his breakthrough in his career when this film was made. I do believe that Spike Lee did the right thing by casting Samuel L. Jackson. At about the 50-min mark of the film (that's almost halfway through), he (Samuel Jackson's character) started yelling "Time out!". He said it multiple times and very loud. If I were in control, I would have probably paused the film for a time-out following his command. I don't know if you know, gentle reader, some cinemas have an intermission at about a halfway mark of the films they show. Now, if this film was shown in such a place, and the intermission started right after Samuel Jackson yelled "Time out! Time out!", that would have been really funny. Oh well.
I give 7/10.
Fun fact: it turns out that the director was so obsessed with showing the heat that he put a heat bar in front of the camera to make it look more real. So those beads of sweat were actually real sweat in at least some of the scenes.
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