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events extra
pride and prejudice
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Photos l-r: Enjoying the event; Chiwetel Ejiofor and Amma Asante co-presenting the Academy Tribute; Spike Lee with Bonnie Greer and with cinematographer Jack Cardiff Contents page: Lord Attenborough presenting Spike Lee with a BAFTA Special Award (Photos by Mike Vaughn)
Since making his trailblazing first feature She’s Gotta Have It, in 1986 – it cost less than $200,000 and grossed over $7m – Spike Lee has gone on to direct more than 15 films includ- ing Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever and Malcolm X.
The roll call of acting talent the Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-raised Lee has nurtured includes Laurence Fishburne, Denzel Washington, Samuel L Jackson, Halle Berry, Delroy Lindo, Rosie Perez and Wesley Snipes.
With Lee, said BAFTA’s Amma Asante, who produced an Academy Tribute in November to the gifted African-American filmmaker, “came a black auteur telling stories of humankind from the wide diversity of the black experience from a perspective that we’d not been privileged to see before on such a level. His original voice and original visual style has influenced filmmakers around the world.”
According to award-winning British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who co-introduced the evening with Asante, Lee is “one of the rarest breed of artist, always compul- sive, always vital with a fervent intellect representing the social, historical and personal aspects of our humanity and politics.
“For me,” added Ejiofor, “ Spike Lee encompasses what all great filmmakers possess - a watchful eye and a powerful voice.”
Presenting Lee, 45, with a BAFTA Special Award, Academy President Lord Attenborough said that Lee’s work should be judged on the fact that he was operat- ing “in the whole spectrum of filmmakers.”
It was important he added “that black people have as free and equal opportunity to create the work that they are passion- ately committed to as any white person has.
“What you have done and what you have said, “he told Lee, “gives that opportunity a thou- sand times greater than it might have been before you started to make movies.”
After the presentation, Lee was in conversation with writer-critic Bonnie Greer who invited the audience to join her for a combi- nation of chat and clips on “a voyage through the work of a modern auteur.” Here are some edited extracts.
BG: Who do you make your films for?
SL: I make them for myself. But looking at [that clip of] Do The Right Thing I want to acknowl- edge a great cinematographer here in the audience... Jack Cardiff. Ernest Dickerson [Lee’s DoP] and I stole a lot of stuff from The Red Shoes for it. We wanted to have vibrant colours and those colours they got on the Red Shoes were what we were aspir-
ing to. In Do The Right Thing, there is a Wall of Fame for, as Danny Aiello says, ‘Italian Americans Only’. At end of the film, the wall gets burnt down and one of the photos burnt was Frank Sinatra. So couple of films later we’re getting ready to do Jungle Fever and we want to use three Frank Sinatra songs (laughs with audience)... The Chairman of the Board was not happy about his likeness being burned in my film, but we worked it out though.
BG: Who financed your first films?
SL: For She’s Gotta Have It – everything I did before was at film school – I got a grant from the New York Foundations of the Arts, The Jerome Foundation and my grandmother gave me some money. She put me through Morehouse College and gradu- ate school. Then I just asked and begged for money to complete the film.
BG: What’s it like working with your family?
SL: It’s a different element when you work with your family because sometimes it’s hard for my siblings to make that line of demarcation between whether it’s the director ‘telling me to do this or my big brother.’ It can give its difficulties but we always got around that.
BG: ‘Misunderstandings’ and ‘Misunderstood’ – any response to those two?