dir. Spike Lee
year. 1990
country. USA
run-time. 129 mins
rating. 15
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Doors: 7.00pm
Film: 7.30pm
October in Britain is Black History Month, and for Deptford Cinema that means a sweeping retrospective of director Spike Lee’s joints. Since his breakout first feature She's Gotta Have It back in 1986, African-American filmmaker Spike Lee has built an incredibly diverse, politically-charged, and hugely respected filmography that is famed for its pull-no-punches focus on the Black American experience in a society still infused with racism, from his early-career feature Do the Right Thing to the recent Cannes-winning police drama BlackKklansman. Lee’s films hungrily fuse satire, anger, provocative ideological positions, and plenty of humour into compelling expressionistic rockets. Lee’s films dance freely between being realistic and symbolic, lighthearted and tragic, funny and savage, sometimes all within the same scene. Identity, racial prejudice, and the struggles to compromise and co-exist as a minority in the modern world all come under his microscope, even as his 2006 film Inside Man showed him more than capable of switching to more mainstream genre fare. His expressive visual approaches means certain ‘Spike-isms’ are now an immediately recognisable cinematographic flourishes: such as his love of free-floating dolly shots. His longstanding collaboration with Denzel Washington, in films such as Malcolm X and He Got Game, remains one of the most rewarding actor-director collaborations in recent film history. There is so much to be angered by, to be moved by, and to laugh at, in Lee’s filmography that you surely can’t afford to miss out on this retrospective.
MO’ BETTER BLUES
The dynamic duo of Denzel Washington and Spike Lee combine forces for the first time in this freewheeling and ambitious study of an erratic, arrogant but supremely talented black jazz musician and the various dramas he gets caught up in trying to negotiate the music, the women, and ambitious bandmates. Wesley Snipes also features as Washington’s main rival in fame and love. Written and directed by Lee, this film features some blistering music set pieces too: a testament to Lee’s musical heritage and his love of Jazz.
Doors Open 7pm*
*Programme Start 7.30pm*
*Age Restriction over 15