Spike Lee:
Finding the Story and Forcing the Issue
by Jason P. Vest
PN1998.3.L44 V47 2014
New Arrivals, 2nd floor
Spike Lee built a reputation for himself as a film maker by tackling systemic issues of race, poverty, and society in a way that no other director was doing in his time. In Vest’s book about Lee and his films, prominent themes from Lee’s movies are critiqued and deconstructed. While the book at face value is a film criticism, it explores many issues of Lee’s films at great length. Each chapter focuses on one of the major film motifs that Lee is known for and how they played out in various films that he created. Much has been written about Lee’s work from the popular lens, but Vest’s critique gives Spike Lee’s “joints” a much needed academic viewpoint.
Check out Lee’s ground breaking film Do The Right Thing from the Andersen Library. A movie that Barack and Michelle Obama went to see on their first date.
