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Contemporary Film Directors
Spike Lee
Since the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social commentary. He is arguably the most accomplished African American filmmaker in cinematic history, and his breakthrough paved the way for the success of many other African Americans in film.
In this first single-author scholarly examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre, Todd McGowan shows how Lee's films, from She's Gotta Have It through Red Hook Summer, address crucial social issues such as racism, paranoia, and economic exploitation in a formally inventive manner. McGowan argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art. McGowan contends that it is impossible to watch a Spike Lee film in the way that one watches a typical Hollywood film. By forcing observers to recognize their unconscious enjoyment of violence, paranoia, racism, sexism, and oppression, Lee's films prod spectators to see differently and to confront their own excess. In the process, his films reveal what is at stake in desire, interpersonal relations, work, and artistic creation itself.
In this first single-author scholarly examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre, Todd McGowan shows how Lee's films, from She's Gotta Have It through Red Hook Summer, address crucial social issues such as racism, paranoia, and economic exploitation in a formally inventive manner. McGowan argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art. McGowan contends that it is impossible to watch a Spike Lee film in the way that one watches a typical Hollywood film. By forcing observers to recognize their unconscious enjoyment of violence, paranoia, racism, sexism, and oppression, Lee's films prod spectators to see differently and to confront their own excess. In the process, his films reveal what is at stake in desire, interpersonal relations, work, and artistic creation itself.
- GenresFilm
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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About the author
Todd McGowan
50 books221 followersTodd McGowan is Associate Professor of Film at the University of Vermont, US. He is the author of The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012), Out of Time: Desire in Atemporal Cinema (2011), The Impossible David Lynch (2007), The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan (2007), and other books.
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April 17, 2020
According to Todd McGowan, Spike Lee is a filmmaker of excess. McGowan sees excess both diegetically and formally in Lee's work. In his book, Spike Lee (Contemporary Film Directors), he writes, "Within the study of film, excess has a precise definition. It is what goes beyond the narrative requirements of a film and thereby draws the spectator's attention to form. But excess is also operative throughout the social order, as many thinkers have recognized. It disrupts the smooth functioning of society and makes evident the failure of all elements to fit together" (1-2). Lee's diegetic and formal commitment to excess makes him a radical filmmaker capable of making social critiques that many other filmmakers cannot.
Lee's commitment to social commentary does not render him this dry, passionless filmmaker. In fact, according to McGowan, part of what makes Lee's films work is the play or dependency excess and passion share. McGowan writes, "Lee's films show that, as subjects, we are defined by what exceeds our social identity, and they also make evident that what exceeds our typical frame of reference is identical to the passion that animates us" (2). We see, for example, this relationship between excess and passion in a figure like Radio Raheem from Lee's 1989 masterpiece, Do the Right Thing. Radio Raheem's loud, intrusive music (which he blares from a boombox until Sal destroys it at the end of the film) is a sign of his passionate commitment to an excessive identity that is both tethered to his community but separate from it. According to McGowan, we see in a figure like Radio Raheem how "every passion is an excessive passion. It is not simply an affect that we have—one among many—but rather what constitutes us as subjects" (2). Passion, in this sense, is a contradictory concept. As McGowan suggests, "Passion doesn't fit within the narratives that we use to understand ourselves and our actions, and yet it is, in the last instance, determinative" (2).
Passion and excess work as a means of emancipation. McGowan writes, "Through excess, the subject discovers its singularity and transcends its environment. Excess, as Lee depicts it, provides the possibility for a passion that one cannot find elsewhere, and it is simultaneously a site for emancipation" (17). A word like emancipation is, at times, nebulous and slippery, but for McGowan, emancipation is the site of one's separation or "estrangement" from the social order, what he describes as "singularity." McGowan insists on a clear difference between singularity and individuality. He writes, "In contrast to individuality, singularity marks the subject's dislocation, its estrangement from the social order. Whereas the individual has a number of qualities that define it, singularity emerges when personality disappears and a passion emerges. In this sense, singularity is not only different from individuality but its opposite" (18). McGowan continues, "The singularity of the subject provides the basis for all capacity for resistance and revolutionary change because it attests to what the ruling order cannot include" (18).
Once again, Radio Raheem functions as a source of singularity as McGowan defines it, and we see his singularity in two ways. First, Lee visualizes Radio Raheem's singularity by shooting him as the largest and the most imposing figure in the film. Second, Radio Raheem's commitment to playing his music as loud as possible without compromise further distinguishes him as a figure of singularity. Scholars such as Ed Guerrerro argue that Radio Raheem is a bully, but I disagree. While Radio Raheem may seem like a bully, thinking of him exclusively as such misses how his excessiveness throughout the film foregrounds the way his death at the end of the film, functions symbolically. Radio Raheem's death at the hands of a white police force, dramatizes what white power structures do to black excess; they kill it. Something similar happens in Ava DuVernay's 2014 film, Selma. In the film, the first attempt to march to Selma (sans King) ends horrifically and violently. State troopers attack the peaceful protestors with clubs and tear gas. As figures of excess, what Radio Raheem in Lee's Do the Right Thing and the Selma marchers in DuVernay's Selma share are the trauma and brutality thrust upon African Americans. Subjects of excess, then, as McGowan suggests, become free or emancipated: "Rather than ensconcing subjects more fully within the domain of power structures, it [excess] provides a path of emancipation. The subject experiences the passionate attachment as a burden that appears inescapable, but this burden frees the subject from the constraints of its social world" (19).
None of this is to suggest that I endorse the violence and death perpetrated against black bodies in either Lee and DuVernay's films or in general. But I think what Lee's Do the Right Thing in particular reveals is the extremes characters like Radio Raheem must embrace to show, whether he intends to or not, the racism and prejudice at the heart of society and social institutions. This is precisely what McGowan's work in Spike Lee (Contemporary Film Directors) helps to articulate. Excess is something we often have trouble understanding, but in McGowan's hands, we see how excess functions and why we too often attempt to suppress it.
Lee's commitment to social commentary does not render him this dry, passionless filmmaker. In fact, according to McGowan, part of what makes Lee's films work is the play or dependency excess and passion share. McGowan writes, "Lee's films show that, as subjects, we are defined by what exceeds our social identity, and they also make evident that what exceeds our typical frame of reference is identical to the passion that animates us" (2). We see, for example, this relationship between excess and passion in a figure like Radio Raheem from Lee's 1989 masterpiece, Do the Right Thing. Radio Raheem's loud, intrusive music (which he blares from a boombox until Sal destroys it at the end of the film) is a sign of his passionate commitment to an excessive identity that is both tethered to his community but separate from it. According to McGowan, we see in a figure like Radio Raheem how "every passion is an excessive passion. It is not simply an affect that we have—one among many—but rather what constitutes us as subjects" (2). Passion, in this sense, is a contradictory concept. As McGowan suggests, "Passion doesn't fit within the narratives that we use to understand ourselves and our actions, and yet it is, in the last instance, determinative" (2).
Passion and excess work as a means of emancipation. McGowan writes, "Through excess, the subject discovers its singularity and transcends its environment. Excess, as Lee depicts it, provides the possibility for a passion that one cannot find elsewhere, and it is simultaneously a site for emancipation" (17). A word like emancipation is, at times, nebulous and slippery, but for McGowan, emancipation is the site of one's separation or "estrangement" from the social order, what he describes as "singularity." McGowan insists on a clear difference between singularity and individuality. He writes, "In contrast to individuality, singularity marks the subject's dislocation, its estrangement from the social order. Whereas the individual has a number of qualities that define it, singularity emerges when personality disappears and a passion emerges. In this sense, singularity is not only different from individuality but its opposite" (18). McGowan continues, "The singularity of the subject provides the basis for all capacity for resistance and revolutionary change because it attests to what the ruling order cannot include" (18).
Once again, Radio Raheem functions as a source of singularity as McGowan defines it, and we see his singularity in two ways. First, Lee visualizes Radio Raheem's singularity by shooting him as the largest and the most imposing figure in the film. Second, Radio Raheem's commitment to playing his music as loud as possible without compromise further distinguishes him as a figure of singularity. Scholars such as Ed Guerrerro argue that Radio Raheem is a bully, but I disagree. While Radio Raheem may seem like a bully, thinking of him exclusively as such misses how his excessiveness throughout the film foregrounds the way his death at the end of the film, functions symbolically. Radio Raheem's death at the hands of a white police force, dramatizes what white power structures do to black excess; they kill it. Something similar happens in Ava DuVernay's 2014 film, Selma. In the film, the first attempt to march to Selma (sans King) ends horrifically and violently. State troopers attack the peaceful protestors with clubs and tear gas. As figures of excess, what Radio Raheem in Lee's Do the Right Thing and the Selma marchers in DuVernay's Selma share are the trauma and brutality thrust upon African Americans. Subjects of excess, then, as McGowan suggests, become free or emancipated: "Rather than ensconcing subjects more fully within the domain of power structures, it [excess] provides a path of emancipation. The subject experiences the passionate attachment as a burden that appears inescapable, but this burden frees the subject from the constraints of its social world" (19).
None of this is to suggest that I endorse the violence and death perpetrated against black bodies in either Lee and DuVernay's films or in general. But I think what Lee's Do the Right Thing in particular reveals is the extremes characters like Radio Raheem must embrace to show, whether he intends to or not, the racism and prejudice at the heart of society and social institutions. This is precisely what McGowan's work in Spike Lee (Contemporary Film Directors) helps to articulate. Excess is something we often have trouble understanding, but in McGowan's hands, we see how excess functions and why we too often attempt to suppress it.
March 29, 2022
McGowan presents Spike Lee as a filmmaker of excess and singularity, whose politics are defined by community, paranoia, and excess. This was a bit challenging at the start, but I ultimately loved reading it and I agreed with a lot of what McGowan had to say about Lee's oeuvre.
The big takeaway for me is thinking about the way identity and singularity play a role in Lee films, but also in our everyday political life. I also hope to keep these ideas in mind as I re-watch Lee's films and as I watch other films in the same vein.
The big takeaway for me is thinking about the way identity and singularity play a role in Lee films, but also in our everyday political life. I also hope to keep these ideas in mind as I re-watch Lee's films and as I watch other films in the same vein.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews