A quick Spike Lee biography
Shelton Jackson Lee (Spike Lee) was born on 20 March 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia. His dad, Bill, was a jazz musician and composer, while his mum was a teacher of arts and Black literature. They moved to Brooklyn, New York, when Lee was a child, and this location would later become central to many of his films.
Lee went to Morehouse College in Atlanta and later did a Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. For his thesis, he made the film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, which won him a Student Academy Award.
Spike Lee’s signature styles
Double dolly shot
This is where the actor and camera move at the same time on dollies, making an odd, floating effect. It’s usually used where there’s heightened emotion or a revelation, but sometimes also just to make things feel a little creepy!
Breaking the fourth wall
Lee likes to use direct-to-camera addresses known as breaking the fourth wall, which creates a different kind of connection with the audience as the characters are looking right at us (the audience) while they’re delivering dialogue.
Using archival footage
Lee makes great use of documentary footage in montages to highlight significant events in history or link those events with present times. This technique can be a strong commentary on things like racism, showing its persistence in society.
Lots of bright colours
Saturated colours and coloured filters are a big feature of Lee’s work, and he uses them to strengthen a particular mood or underscore themes in the film. It can also make scenes feel larger than life, making for very compelling viewing.
Recurring themes in Spike Lee’s films
Identity, tension, and racism
Lee explores race and racism in a powerful way through characters that are nuanced and scripts that are often darkly comic. He often interrogates prejudice, systemic racism, and the potential consequences of anger. He looks at what it’s like to be Black in the US (through the years) in a way that’s really raw and compelling. In terms of identity, his films show Black characters as central to their own stories rather than Black characters in relation to white stories.
Black empowerment and pride
There’s a lot of overlap with identity here, but lots of Lee’s films also celebrate Black culture and resilience. He uses bold storytelling, and again those complex characters, to show the strength, resilience, and cultural richness of Black communities. This includes paying homage to Black empowerment figures like Malcolm X and weaving elements of Black culture and heritage into his films.
Gentrification
Lee tackles the idea of gentrification in predominately Black communities, and often does this using Brooklyn as a microcosm. This could be through the erosion of Black-owned businesses, the displacement of communities (like in Red Hook Summer (2012) where Black residents are forced out of their neighbourhoods because of rising property values), or to economic inequality more generally.
5 top Spike Lee films to watch
1. Do the Right Thing (1989)
Do the Right Thing is a comedy-drama set over the course of a day, capturing the racial and cultural dynamics of a Brooklyn neighbourhood. Lee (who also wrote and produced the film) plays Mookie, the main character, who works as a pizza delivery boy. The heat getting stronger through the day is a metaphor for the rising racial tensions, which conclude in a confrontation over the pizzeria’s ‘wall of fame’ that doesn’t feature any people of the Black community it serves.
2. Malcolm X (1992)
A biopic of the activist Malcolm X, this film tells the story of key events in his life, including the murder of his father (which was registered as a suicide), his early years of crime and subsequent jail time, his activism, and his assassination. Malcolm X is one of Lee’s most celebrated works, and it received huge acclaim from both audiences and critics.
3. 25th Hour (2002)
Set in New York, post 9/11, 25th Hour follows a drug dealer’s last day of freedom before going to prison. He spends time with people closest to him, and every interaction has Monty reflecting on the choices that led to this. There’s a particularly memorable scene where he gives a powerful monologue in front of a bathroom mirror.
4. BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, a Black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, BlacKkKlansman is a darkly comic film that looks at racism, identity, and systemic oppression. There’s a montage tying the events of the ‘70s to current-day racial violence and white supremacy.
5. Da 5 Bloods (2020)
A group of four Black veterans return to Vietnam decades later to recover the remains of their squad leader and also some buried gold! Lee juxtaposes the historical context of Black soldiers who fought in Vietnam with the systemic racism they faced in the US. There’s a lot of archive footage in this film, as well as flashback sequences, which refreshingly didn’t try to make the soldiers younger but kept them the age they are in the present.
Did you know?
- Lee likes to hire related people to play family members in his films, including a husband and wife, a father and son, and his own brother and sister!
- He became the first Black president of the Palme d’Or jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.
- He was a guest lecturer in Afro-American Studies at Harvard in the ‘90s.
- Lee is a huge New York Knicks fan and often wears their branded clothing while directing.
- The phrase “wake up” appears in a lot of his films to urge audiences to be more aware of social issues.
- His production company is called 40 Acres and a Mule, which refers to the broken promises made after the Civil War to those freed from enslavement.
Controversies and criticisms
Lee was accused of stereotyping Italian-Americans in Do the Right Thing and of perpetuating some anti-Semitic stereotypes in Mo’ Better Blues (1990). He got into a bit of a feud with Clint Eastwood for saying his Second World War films didn’t contain enough representation when it came to Black soldiers, although he later said his intent was to highlight broader issues with representation in Hollywood.
When Lee’s 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It was made into a Netflix series (2017–2019), there was a bit of a backlash for his portrayal of certain characters and themes, which might highlight the difficulty of adapting older works for a contemporary audience.
Resources
Find out more about Spike Lee:
More free film theory articles
About this page
This page was written by Marie Gardiner. Marie is a writer, author, and photographer. It was edited by Andrew Blackman. Andrew is a freelance writer and editor, and is a copy editor for Envato Tuts+.